


Futures

by AconitumNapellus



Series: To Live A Little [7]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Blindness, Children, Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-16 01:40:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17540264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AconitumNapellus/pseuds/AconitumNapellus
Summary: It's the late 1970s. Illya has been blind for at least ten years, and he and Napoleon now have two children. Thrush realise that's a weakness that can be too easily exploited.For some background, this actually occurs after an installment of this saga that I've started writing but haven't finished. That installment establishes that Waverly is dead and Illya is now the head of U.N.C.L.E. New York. He and Napoleon live in the penthouse that Napoleon inherited from his Aunt Amy.I've chosen not to use archive warnings because although the violence in this isn't extreme, there's unpleasant homophobia, and also violence/threat towards young children, which was really hard for me to write.





	1. Chapter 1

The air was so full of wholesome scents that when Illya opened his mouth he could taste them on his tongue. The cinnamon and mixed spice were filling the air with their fragrant dust, and the dried fruits gave out a rich, dark scent. The grated lemon zest was tangy on his fingertips when he licked them. He cleaned his hands off and ran them over the recipe again, checking the method. He had already mixed the fruit, flour, and spices. He needed to cream the butter and sugar, and add lemon zest and eggs.

He was late making the Christmas cake, with only a week to go until Christmas, but life had been so busy recently, with his work at U.N.C.L.E. on one side and his home life on the other. Later, they would celebrate New Year as he had back in Ukraine, but he wanted to make Christmas like the ones he had grown used to in Cambridge.

‘Papa, papa, papa!’

Little hands tugged on the hem of his apron. He sighed and crouched down, putting his hands on soft, bare arms. He stroked his fingers over the light, delicate hair on the boy’s head.

‘Nikolai, didn’t daddy tell you not to come in the kitchen while papa’s cooking?’ he asked in Ukrainian, trying not to sound impatient.

He ran through where everything was in his head. The ingredients were well back from the edge of the counter top. The knives were well away from the edge too. The oven was heating up, but the boys knew well not to touch the oven. The bowl with the flour and fruit in it – 

‘No, Kolenka,’ Illya said quickly, as the little boy tried to tug away from his hands.

‘Want raisins!’ his son said, trying to pull free. ‘Papa, want raisins!’

‘I’ll give you some raisins,’ Illya promised, picking him up and settling him on his hip. ‘No, not the ones in the bowl. They’re covered in flour. I’ll give you some from the packet.’ He reached out, feeling, and found the mixed fruit. He took a little handful and opened his palm to the child. ‘There, Kolenka,’ he said. ‘Have you got them? Okay.’

He put him back on the floor and held out a hand.

‘Take me to daddy, now. Is Pasha with daddy?’

‘Pasha sleep,’ Nikolai told him, and tugged at his hand. ‘C’mon, papa.’

‘All right,’ Illya said, following. ‘All right, Kolya. Remember papa can’t see.’

‘Papa can’t see,’ Nikolai parroted.

Illya had been telling him and Pasha that for as long as he thought they might have a hope of understanding, but they still couldn’t quite connect the fact of his blindness with his actual inability to see. They still tried to show him things on the television, or pictures they had drawn. Sometimes he reminded them,  _ papa can’t see _ , but sometimes he smiled and told them what a beautiful picture it was.

Illya followed his son out of the kitchen and into the other room, and asked, ‘Where’s daddy, Kolya?’

‘Daddy sleep,’ Nikolai said, tugging him across the room.

Illya put out a hand.

‘Where’s daddy? Is he on the sofa?’

‘Yes, daddy sleep on sofa. Pasha sleep on daddy.’

‘Ahh,’ Illya smiled. He moved carefully to the sofa, and his leg nudged Napoleon’s. He put his hand on Napoleon’s knee and shook it gently. ‘Hey,’ he said, switching to English. ‘Napoleon.  _ Napoleon _ .’

There was a slight coughing noise, then Napoleon said in a slurred voice, ‘Not ’sleep. I’m not asleep, Illya. It’s okay. I’m – ’

‘Is Pasha on you?’ Illya asked, touching the sofa before sitting down. ‘Nikolai says Pasha is asleep on you.’

‘Uh – yeah,’ Napoleon said then, still sounding dazed with sleep. ‘Yeah, I’d just gotten him off. I must have drifted off too. Sorry, Illya. I was supposed to be keeping them out of your way, wasn’t I?’

Illya leant in and gently kissed Napoleon’s cheek. He felt Pasha on his chest, slumped and soft and warm in sleep, breathing slowly. He left his hand there, just feeling the soft rise and fall and the fast beat of his heart.

‘You had a long night with them,’ he said. ‘It’s all right. Kolya just came into the kitchen and asked for raisins. I think he was bored.’

‘Should stick the television on,’ Napoleon suggested, and Illya shook his head.

‘You know I don’t like using it as a babysitter. Don’t worry. As long as I know he’s running loose I’ll keep an ear on him. I had everything well out of the way, anyway.’

‘Are you sleepy, Kolya?’ Napoleon asked hopefully.

‘No,’ Kolya said firmly. Illya knew that tone so well.

‘All right, Kolya,’ he said. ‘No, Napoleon, there’s no point trying to get him to sleep when he’s not tired. You know they take turns at sleeping.’

‘I remember a few Thrush torturers like that,’ Napoleon said grimly, and Illya hushed him. There were some things about their lives that he didn’t want the children to learn; at least, not yet.

‘Come with me, Kolya,’ he said, holding out his hand to the child. ‘Come with papa into the kitchen. D’you want to help me make a cake? Would you like that? Let’s let daddy sleep.’

He took Kolya back into the kitchen, and considered how it would be easiest to bake with him.

‘Look, let me get your highchair,’ he said, putting the boy on the floor.

He went over to the table, where two highchairs stood next to each other. He brought one across to the counter and put it down.

‘Kolya,’ he called, opening his arms. ‘Come here. I’ll put you in.’

Kolya toddled over to him, and Illya scooped him up.

‘Here,’ he said, strapping him into the chair. He pushed him a little closer to the counter, and got another handful of raisins to put in front of him. ‘You eat those. That’s it. You’re in charge of those raisins.’

‘Glassy cherries!’ the little boy suddenly cried needfully, and Illya sighed. They must still be out on the counter.

‘If I give you glacé cherries you’ll be sticky all over,’ he said. 

‘Glassy cherries!’ Kolya insisted, so Illya found the pot and gave him a couple.

‘Just two,’ he said. ‘No, Kolya. Just two. They’re too sticky.’

He licked his fingers and turned himself back to his baking. He had the butter and sugar already combined in a bowl, so he took a wooden spoon and began to cream the ingredients together.

‘This is called  _ creaming _ , Kolya,’ he said instructively, turning the bowl so the boy could see. ‘We mix the butter and sugar together with the back of a wooden spoon, just like this.’

By the time he thought the mixture was properly creamed his arm was aching. He put the spoon down and picked up an egg. Each time he cracked one, Kolya laughed, then laughed again as he beat them into the mixture.

‘How does that look?’ Illya asked tilting the bowl, and Kolya said, ‘Ugh.’

‘It is ugh,’ Illya nodded gravely. ‘It’s raw egg. You don’t touch raw egg. But, now, I need to put the lemon in.’ He found the grater, and drew out the container underneath that held the grated lemon zest. ‘Do you smell that, Kolenka? Nice. No, don’t taste it. It’s sour. But it smells nice.’

Kolya started to spit, and Illya laughed.

‘You tried it, didn’t you? Was it sour? Bitter?’

‘Ugh,’ Kolya said.

Illya poured him a little cup of water, and gave it to him. ‘Have a drink. Wash it out of your mouth.’

He heard the door buzzer then, and he turned his head. 

‘Napoleon,’ he called, wondering if Napoleon was awake. 

‘I’m going,’ his partner replied in a sleepy voice from the other room.

Pasha made a little crying noise as he was disturbed, then the crying grew as Napoleon left him to go to the door. Neither of them would ever carry one of their children with him to the door. You could never be certain of unexpected callers.

Illya listened while he found the bottle of brandy and poured some out into a cup, then dipped a bent measuring spoon in to get the right amount. He could hear Napoleon talking normally in the distance. It was just an ordinary visitor, nothing suspicious. A lot of people dropped by this near Christmas.

‘This is brandy,’ he told Kolya, letting him sniff the drink. ‘Not for little boys. I’m using it to flavour the cake.’

The mixture was heavy as he folded the flour and dried fruit into the wet ingredients. It felt satisfyingly rich. He scraped it all carefully into the cake tin and shook it a little to level it off.

‘What do you think, Kolenka?’ he asked. ‘Is that flat?’

‘Lumpy,’ Kolya said, and Illya laughed as he spread the back of his spoon over the top of the mixture, flattening it out more.

‘It is lumpy,’ he agreed, ‘but it’ll taste good. Now, the oven. You remember the oven’s hot, don’t you, Kolya? You never touch the oven.’

He opened the oven and heat radiated out against his skin. He carefully slipped the tin in, shut the door, and set his timer.

‘I think I’ll let daddy clean up,’ he told Kolya with a grin.

He got a cloth and carefully wiped the toddler’s hands clean of sticky syrup, then took him out of the high chair and hugged the boy against his chest, breathing in his scent. Sometimes his heart felt so full of love for his boys that he couldn’t bear it. Kolya wriggled against the hug, though, impatient to be moving. He always wanted to be moving. Now he could walk, he was always where Illya didn’t expect him to be, getting his hands into things he shouldn’t be touching.

‘All right,’ Illya said. ‘That cake’s got a while. Shall we go and see who was at the door?’

‘Down!’ Kolya insisted. ‘Me down!’

Illya held onto him for a moment as he went to the kitchen door. ‘Napoleon?’ he called through cautiously. ‘Who is it?’

‘Just Mrs Percival with a card,’ Napoleon called back. ‘You can let Pasha out of his cage.’

With a feeling of relief, Illya put his struggling child down, and went through into the living room to find Pasha in the play pen and set him free. He walked carefully, as he always did, because now there were two small children in the apartment there was often attendant chaos; bottles or beakers dropped on the floor, building blocks that were particularly painful underfoot, books or bits of clothing. Things had been relatively controllable until first Pasha, and then Kolya, had learnt to walk. He could see some contrast and colours in his good eye, but not enough to pick out a dropped item on the floor most of the time.

Pasha was still crying from being woken up, and Illya picked him up and held him against his chest, rocking him and shushing him gently, murmuring to him in Ukrainian. He spoke to them in his native tongues as much as he could, determined they would grow up fluent in Ukrainian and Russian as well as English. People told him he would confuse them, but he knew how important it was to learn languages early. People told him and Napoleon all sorts of things that he dismissed as bunkum, because they didn’t imagine that two men would ever be capable of raising a child.

Outside the walls of their apartment most people thought the Russian-named boys were Illya’s, conceived from some liaison, and that he was valiantly struggling to raise them without the help of their absent mother. It was his name on the birth certificate as their father. He and Napoleon were very careful not to let people know about their relationship unless they trusted them fully, so to most acquaintances Illya was a noble single father, and Napoleon was his amazingly giving friend, who was willing not only to look after Illya in his blindness, but also his children. It was easier that, than to tell them the truth, and risk the authorities coming in and tearing their family apart.

‘Illya, come say hello to Mrs Percival,’ Napoleon insisted.

He sighed quietly, his mouth against Pasha’s dark hair. Socialising and trying to pacify an upset child didn’t really go together.

‘Oh, don’t you worry, Mr Kuryakin,’ Mrs Percival called from the doorway. ‘I can see you’re busy. You put that little boy down to sleep. Don’t worry about me.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Percival,’ Illya called back with a smile. ‘Merry Christmas to you, too.’

‘Merry Christmas, dear,’ she called back.

Nikolai was tugging at his apron again. He’d forgotten he still had that on.

‘What is it, Kolya?’ Illya asked. Pasha was still whimpering against his ear. He was starting to feel stressed.

‘Want bottle,’ Kolya asked plaintively, and immediately Pasha chimed in, ‘Bottle! Bottle!’

He felt a little as if he were going to explode. He liked cooking, but it always left him stressed trying to cook when the children were allowed to bother him. He loved the children, but when there were two sets of crying going on at once, hands tugging at him, and the knowledge that there was someone in the doorway watching it all, it made his mind spin.

He took Pasha back to the sofa, trying to walk carefully with Kolya pushing at his hip and babbling in Ukrainian, ‘Papa over here. Here, papa. Papa sit down.’

It was so sweet of Kolya to try to guide him, but it would be easier at times to be left to his own devices. He sat back on the sofa and jogged Pasha on his chest, and prayed for Napoleon to finish at the door. Kolya clambered up onto the sofa and started to pull his hair, and he thought again about getting it cut shorter despite the current fashion and the way Napoleon loved to run his fingers through the strands.

‘Napoleon,’ he called.

He was immensely relieved to hear the front door closing.

‘I’ll get them their bottles now, love,’ Napoleon told him, hurrying through into the kitchen. ‘Pasha, Kolya, stop hollering. Daddy’s getting you bottles now.’

Illya leant his head back against the sofa and tried not to snap at Kolya for pulling his hair, or to snap at Napoleon for not getting the bottles fast enough, or at Pasha for bawling so loudly.

Then Napoleon came with the milk, and pressed a bottle into his hand.

‘You take Pasha, I’ll look after Kolya,’ Napoleon told him over the racket.

‘Thank god,’ Illya murmured.

He shifted Pasha carefully until he was in a better position, and let him take the bottle. The crying instantly dimmed, becoming muffled by the rubber teat, and then hushed to the sound of sucking, and occasional hiccups.

‘We should have weaned them off these months ago,’ he worried.

‘No, we shouldn’t,’ Napoleon told him firmly, settling down beside him, close enough that his side was pressed against Illya’s. ‘You remember what Beth told us? When you have twins, you do whatever you need to do to keep the peace. They’ll be weaned. They won’t use pacifiers for the rest of their lives, either. But we do what we need so that they sleep and we sleep.’

‘Do you think they’ll  _ ever _ sleep?’ Illya asked rather plaintively.

‘They will,’ Napoleon said. ‘There you are, Kolya. No, don’t snatch it. Look, why don’t you – ’ He sighed. ‘I was hoping he’d settle on me. He’s gone over to sit under the Christmas tree.’

‘I suppose the Christmas tree is a wonder to him. He won’t remember last year’s,’ Illya smiled, looking over towards the medley of lights on the tree.

He brushed his fingers through Pasha’s hair. Pasha was dark like Napoleon, and Kolya was fair like him. He could make out the darkness and the fairness through his good eye. He rarely wished to be able to see nowadays, but he did wish he could see how his and Napoleon’s genes had come together to make these amazing boys. It had been a medical miracle that they existed at all. The scientific advances that had been made in the U.N.C.L.E. labs probably wouldn’t see the light of day for decades, but they had allowed them to combine their genetic input inside stripped out human eggs, and they shared parentage of their children. It was an incredible thing that he still found hard to believe. The one thing they had not been able to do was carry their children inside themselves, but as soon as the newborn babies had been put in their arms, he had fallen in love.

‘Is Pasha sleeping?’ Illya asked.

The toddler had gone very soft and limp against his side, although every now and then he still sucked, and still made little hiccups, the leftover remains of his crying.

‘Yeah, I think so,’ Napoleon said softly.

‘What’s Kolya doing?’

‘Just sitting under the tree, holding his bottle, looking up at the lights,’ Napoleon said. ‘I wish I had my camera. He’s getting sleepy, though. His head keeps dropping.’

‘Move up a little, won’t you?’ Illya asked, and Napoleon shuffled away from him on the cushions.

Illya gently eased Pasha down, edging away from him so slowly that the toddler hardly reacted. He brushed a hand over him, making sure that he was safely on the cushions and not near the edge, and took the bottle and set it on the floor.

‘He’s settled?’ Illya asked quietly.

‘Sleeping like the proverbial,’ Napoleon told him.

Illya went over to the pine scent of the Christmas tree and knelt down on the floor.

‘Kolenka,’ he said, reaching out. He could hear the little boy sucking on his bottle. ‘Are you looking at the lights? Can you see lots of pretty things on the tree?’

‘Pretty lights,’ Kolya said, grabbing at his hand. Illya could tell that he was sleepy by his voice. ‘Papa look lights.’

He moved Illya’s hand to the lights, and his fingers touched one of the hot bulbs.

‘Ouch!’ he said, more dramatically than he would normally, but he wanted Kolya to understand the lights were hot. ‘Yes, they’re pretty lights, but they’re hot, Kolya. We don’t touch them. Kolya, will you show papa where the sofa is? I lost it again.’

‘Silly papa,’ Kolya said, and Illya echoed, ‘Silly papa. Show me where the sofa is.’

Suggesting Kolya come back to the sofa to sleep would be a perfect way of making him rebel, he knew. But Kolya loved to help his father, and he took Illya’s hand and led him across the room.

‘Show me where daddy is, Kolya,’ Illya told him. He lifted him up when he reached the sofa, feeling the warm weight of the boy’s nappy against his hand. ‘They’re going to need changing when they wake up,’ he said aside to Napoleon.

He sat down with Kolya and held him as he drank his milk, rocking him gently, feeling him become heavier and heavier. Eventually he managed to slip him onto the cushions next to his brother, and he exhaled softly in relief. He laid his palm down, feeling the fat, soft warmth of both of the boys under his hand, relaxed in sleep.

‘Good work, Agent Kuryakin,’ Napoleon said with soft warmth, and when Illya turned his head he kissed him. Napoleon’s mouth was warm, and his lips were so soft, but Illya could feel the need to sleep washing over him as strongly as it had come over the boys.

‘I think I might join them,’ Illya said, ‘but I have a cake that needs taking out of the oven in an hour.’

‘You set your timer?’ Napoleon asked.

‘Of course I set my timer. I have it in my pocket.’

‘Then it’ll wake us up,’ Napoleon said, leaning in a little closer so he was snuggled against Illya’s side. ‘Who says we can’t sleep too?’

‘I am exhausted,’ Illya admitted.

‘I feel like I haven’t slept for eighteen months,’ Napoleon murmured. His head was heavy and warm against Illya’s cheek, the softness of his hair tickling him lightly.

‘Sleep on me, then,’ Illya said.

Napoleon stroked fingers over his shoulder. ‘We could  _ not _ sleep,’ he suggested. Opportunities for intimacy had become few and far between in recent months.

‘We could,’ Illya agreed, laying a hand over his and stroking the skin of his knuckles. ‘But we’re both almost as tired as the boys. And I can’t think of anyone better to sleep with than you.’

‘You have the best chat up lines,’ Napoleon replied jokingly. Then he said, ‘Kiss me, Illya.’

Illya did. It was so good to just sink into the kiss, tasting his mouth, stroking his hair and the skin of his neck, breathing in the scent of his breath. It was good to be able to touch him like that without waiting to be interrupted by a little voice or the tug of a hand.

‘I love you,’ Napoleon said when they finally broke apart, stroking his hair softly, twining his fingers through the soft strands. ‘I love what we created. They’re so beautiful, Illya. I wish you could see them.’

‘I don’t need to see them,’ Illya reassured him. ‘Really, Napoleon. I don’t need to. They’re everything to me that they are to you. I know they’re beautiful.’

Napoleon kissed his cheek, and stroked it with his fingertips.

‘This will be a good Christmas,’ he said. ‘The first the boys will really be aware of. I can’t wait to see their faces on Christmas morning, with the presents under the tree.’

Illya smiled, thinking of the squeals of joy he would hear, the sound of ripping paper, the boys’ delight as they discovered their new toys and books. He had never understood before the boys were born quite what it was to be a parent. He had never understood that odd, unbounded joy that parents seemed to have in their children despite all the hardships and troubles of raising them. Now he felt as though he would walk through fire to hear Kolya and Pasha laugh. It took his breath away to lift them up and smell the clean scent of their hair and skin, and to think that he and Napoleon, together, had created these miracles. It had been something he had never imagined having in his life.

He rested against Napoleon, the warm body of one of the toddlers pressed against one side of him, and Napoleon against the other. He could feel Napoleon’s heartbeat through his chest, slow and steady. Under his hand on the other side, Pasha’s heart was beating faster, but just as steadily. He didn’t spend as much time as he wanted to with any of his loved ones, with U.N.C.L.E. always there like another child, demanding attention, but at least he had managed to secure a few days over the Christmas period, and he intended to make the most of it when the holiday began. He was doing what he could in his time off before then, making the Christmas cake, helping Napoleon to decorate the tree, and playing with the boys while Napoleon saw to the rest of the decorations. They had been out shopping for gifts while Napoleon’s sister looked after the boys, and he had helped to wrap them in the moments when both boys happened to be asleep. He was going to make the most of every minute that he could of this Christmas.


	2. Chapter 2

It was something that woke him. At first he couldn’t work out what it was. An odd, distant noise. A vibration. He blinked and moved a little, and remembered that Napoleon was against one side of him, and the boys sleeping on the other. Then he patted his hand to the vibration that was moving against his hip, and remembered the kitchen timer. The cake would be cooked. He could smell the rich scents from the kitchen.

He eased himself up, rubbing his eyes, fumbling in his pocket to turn off the timer. In the kitchen the scent of cooked fruit cake filled the air. He dumped the timer on the table, found the oven gloves hanging over the rail on the oven, and brought the cake out into the air. It smelled perfect. He flicked on the extractor fan to clear the air, then turned back to the cake. He touched it lightly with the tip of his finger, feeling how firm it was, a little springy when he pressed quickly, but solid with the fullness of the fruit. He put the tin well back from the edge of the work surface, and lightly laid a tea towel over the top of it. He would turn it out later, when it was cool.

He turned the oven off and stepped back into the sitting room.

Another scent hit him then. He wasn’t entirely sure what it was at first. It was bitter and acrid, and it set off a little alarm in his mind. He had smelt that scent before.

He walked across the room so quickly that he banged into the corner of the coffee table.

‘Napoleon, wake up,’ he said sharply, patting his hand hard on Napoleon’s knee.

He didn’t stand there waiting, but went back across the room, hand out in front of him until his fingertips hit the door.

‘Napoleon, wake up,’ he bellowed over his shoulder, and heard the sounds of his partner coming to. He went into the boys’ room and opened the wardrobe, finding their thick snowsuits and the two chest carriers that they used, then hurried back into the sitting room.

‘Do you smell it?’ Illya snapped. ‘Napoleon!’

‘I – ’ Napoleon sounded dazed with sleep. ‘Illya? What is it?’

‘Do you smell it?’ Illya asked again. ‘We need to get out of here. Can you carry both of them? I’ve got their snowsuits, but we need to get out.’

‘Yeah,’ Napoleon said instantly.

Maybe the gas had begun to affect him, but he’d thrown all of that off with the urgency of the situation. Illya heard the crying protests of the boys as Napoleon woke them up. As Napoleon did that Illya went to the gun locker and liberated their weapons.

‘Got them?’ Illya asked, and Napoleon replied, ‘Yes. I’m with you, Illya. Come on.’

He grabbed his cane from the umbrella stand in the hall and jerked coats off the hooks. The first thing, though, was to get out.

‘Elevator?’ Napoleon asked.

‘To the second floor,’ Illya said. ‘They won’t expect us to get out there. It’ll give us more time.’

His arms were full of coats and the chest carriers. He bunched them under one arm and extended his cane. The babies were crying, and he wished to god there was some way of making them quiet. He was used to agents always knowing how quiet to be, how to move covertly, how to make themselves unseen. There was no way of being covert and unseen with wailing toddlers.

‘I’ve got the elevator,’ Napoleon said. ‘The doors have just opened.’

‘Put the boys down,’ Illya said, hurrying into the lift. ‘We’ve got about thirty seconds to get them dressed.’

‘I haven’t pressed a floor button,’ Napoleon told him, putting the children on the floor. One of them grabbed at Illya’s knee, but he ignored the crying boy, trying to sort out the mess of clothing in his arms.

‘Napoleon, help me,’ he said. It was too difficult to work out whose coat was whose, to sort out the spidering bits of the chest carriers, to fight reluctant children into snowsuits.

‘That’s yours,’ Napoleon said, pushing a coat into his hands. ‘I’ll get the boys dressed.’

While Illya put his coat on and sorted out one of the chest carriers, Napoleon managed to get the boys into their clothes. He helped Illya get one of the boys into his carrier and held him up while Illya strapped it on.

‘No, don’t worry, I’ll do Pasha,’ Napoleon said then. ‘Hit two, won’t you?’

Illya hit the floor button while jogging Kolya against his chest. His and Napoleon’s weapons were hard in the waistband of his trousers, and he passed Napoleon his, then slipped his own into his coat pocket. It only held sleep darts, but it would defend him, at least.

‘This is why agents don’t have families,’ he muttered darkly.

‘We’re not agents any more,’ Napoleon pointed out.

‘No, I’m the head of the whole damn – ’

‘Illya, we don’t have time for this,’ Napoleon chided him. ‘This is where we are. We need to focus.’

The lift stopped and the door slid open.

‘Safe?’ Illya asked.

‘It’s safe,’ Napoleon confirmed. ‘Take my arm. Where are we heading?’

‘Right. There’s an empty apartment at the end of the corridor,’ Illya said. ‘Two oh seven. Fire escape from the window in the second bedroom. No, it’s all right, Kolya,’ he said in an entirely different tone, stroking the boy’s head and then pulling up his thick hood. ‘We’re all going out for a walk. It’s all right.’

He took Napoleon’s arm and followed him down the corridor to the apartment door.

‘You pick it,’ Napoleon said. ‘You’re faster than me.’

Illya felt in his coat pocket. He usually had a pick in there, and he found one, slim and cool against his fingers. He picked the lock swiftly and opened the door and followed Napoleon’s arm through the clattering, empty rooms. When he slid the window open cold billowed in.

‘All right, Illya, you can step out,’ Napoleon told him. ‘The street’s empty. Can you manage?’

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ Illya assured him.

He had practised using the fire escape until he knew where everything was when they had moved into the penthouse. It led down into an alley between buildings, a place of dark, plain doorways and rubbish containers, according to Napoleon’s description. It was the kind of place he had used before as a playground for fighting Thrush, but he had never seen this particular alley before he lost his sight.

‘You go first and push the ladder down,’ he said. ‘It’ll be quicker.’

When he had practised using the fire escape he hadn’t had a young child strapped to his chest. He had never imagined having to do this with a child. He should have practised it after the boys were born, but he never could have really tried it with one of them. It wouldn’t have been safe.

Now he had no choice. He folded his cane and stepped onto the ringing metal of the platform outside, feeling for the railing on the other side. Napoleon shut the window after him, concealing their path as much as possible. Illya followed the sounds of him down the steps. Just one flight, and then there was the ladder, which Napoleon freed with a wrenching groan of metal.

‘I’ll go down first,’ Napoleon said.

Illya waited until Napoleon was on the street and calling softly for him to follow. The metal was freezing under his hands as he climbed down. Napoleon reached up a hand as he got closer to the ground, just resting it on his hip, then his back, telling him how close he was to the ground.

‘Take my arm,’ Napoleon said again when he was on solid ground. ‘We’ll find a car.’

‘Alley’s clear?’ Illya asked. He kept his cane folded. It would only get in the way for now.

‘No,’ Napoleon said in an urgent voice.

Illya pulled out his gun. He wanted to put a hand over Kolya’s head, but he needed one to hold onto Napoleon and one for the weapon. In all of his years of active duty he hadn’t felt as vulnerable as now, with his child held against him, unable to see, in an alley in the dark of a winter’s evening.

‘Come on,’ Napoleon said.

Illya followed him at a run, trusting Napoleon to guide him safely. The gun was little use because he had no idea how many enemies there were, or where they were. A shot rang out, hitting somewhere to his left, and Napoleon jerked him sideways.

‘Come on,’ Napoleon said again, and Illya resisted growling,  _ I  _ am _ coming on _ . He wanted to ask if Pasha was all right, but Napoleon would tell him if he wasn’t. He needed to trust Napoleon to look after Pasha like Napoleon was trusting him to look after Kolya.

Another shot, much too close for comfort. They had reached the end of the alley and were out on the street. The traffic was quiet and sparse, and Illya hoped there weren’t many people out on the street, at risk of getting caught up in this deadly game. The building faced onto Central Park, but it was a cold night, and hopefully most people were indoors.

‘Here. Car,’ Napoleon said, reaching his arm forward. Illya moved his hand down Napoleon’s arm and found the cold metal. ‘I’m forcing the lock. Okay. Get in,’ he said quickly.

Illya got in. He had no idea what kind of car it was, or whose car it was. It was a car, and it would get them away from here. He banged his head on the roof as he slipped in. Whatever it was, it was low. Maybe that meant it was fast, too.

Napoleon was getting in on the other side, and the engine jerked into life as he hot-wired it. Another shot exploded, hitting the car somewhere. Illya cradled his hand over Kolya’s head, as if his fingers could stop bullets. The children had no idea what was happening. Sometimes Pasha whimpered, but Kolya was quiet and wondering, his hand grasping at Illya’s chin.

‘Got it?’ Illya asked urgently. His gun was in his hand, but he didn’t think it would be any use. It wasn’t useful unless he could really hear what he was aiming at.

The engine roared as Napoleon depressed the accelerator. As the wheels squealed on the road surface Illya heard a man call out menacingly, ‘Don’t think your little family’s safe, Kuryakin!’

  


((O))

  


‘We need to stop at a store,’ Napoleon said.

They had driven at speed through the streets, escaping their pursuers. Napoleon had said he didn’t think they were being followed any more, but those words rang in Illya’s mind;  _ Don’t think your little family’s safe, Kuryakin. _ It was one thing to be two adult men running from enemies with guns. It was quite another to be running with two eighteen month old children in tow. Someone was trying to get them, and the children were included in the threat.

‘Napoleon, we need to get a long way away from here,’ Illya said seriously.

‘We need to stop at a store,’ Napoleon repeated. ‘The boys don’t have anything, Illya. We don’t have diapers, we don’t have their pacifiers, we don’t have a change of clothes.’

‘You think a clothes store will be open at this time of night? Do we even have any money?’

‘My wallet was still in my coat pocket. I have that, with my I.D. card in it. Communicator too. Do you have yours?’

‘My communicator, yes,’ Illya said. He had picked it up when he got the guns. ‘I don’t have my wallet.’

‘Well, we need diapers, and we need food for the boys.’

Illya sighed. Kolya was asleep against his chest, and Napoleon was driving with Pasha still in his chest carrier, sleeping too. He didn’t want to wake them.

‘This was so much easier ten years ago,’ he murmured.

Napoleon took a moment to lay a hand on his thigh.

‘Would you change it?’ he asked.

Illya smiled. ‘I wouldn’t change having these two. Maybe I’d change driving in a stolen car out of the city with Thrush in hot pursuit, with these two with us.’

‘We could take them to Antonia,’ Napoleon suggested. His sister lived not far out of the city, and the boys loved spending time with their aunt.

‘No,’ Illya said firmly. ‘No. If we take them to anyone – anyone outside of the business – they’ll be at risk. What’s the first thing either of us would do if they took the boys?’

‘We’d go after them,’ Napoleon said resignedly. ‘Of course we would.’

‘So we need to keep them with us. They’re safer with us. If Thrush had them they’d send us a finger at a time until we gave them what they wanted. They’d – ’

Napoleon rested a hand on his thigh again. ‘Illya,’ he said softly.

‘You know they would, Napoleon,’ Illya said darkly.

‘Yes,’ Napoleon said. ‘Yes, I know they would. But they’re not going to, because we won’t let them get to them.’

Napoleon sounded so certain. Illya couldn’t be nearly as sure. Kolya was so warm and alive and real against his chest. He was so precious. Both boys were. All of that could be ended in the split-second of a shot from a gun. The children had only just begun in life. It was terrible to think of it all being ended so soon.

‘Where are we going?’ Illya asked, bringing his attention back to the cold and the dark night and the flashing lights. ‘Where are you driving to?’

‘Somewhere out of town,’ Napoleon said. ‘They’ll have headquarters under surveillance, so it’s not safe to go there. The way they flushed us out of the penthouse implies they spread a net, but we managed to slip through. I don’t think they were expecting us to come out where we did. But they’ll be waiting to get us the instant we make for HQ. We need to ditch this car, too. It could have been a plant. They could be tracking us. If they’re not, the police will be, as soon as it’s reported stolen.’

‘Did you recognise that smell?’ Illya asked.

‘Yes,’ Napoleon said grimly. ‘It’s a nerve gas, isn’t it? Something they developed about seven years back. I remember them dealing with it in the labs.’

‘Yes,’ Illya nodded. ‘It wouldn’t have killed us, but it would have done irreversible harm. If I hadn’t woken up, they could have just walked in and taken us.’

‘The fact that  _ they _ just walked in and tampered with the ventilation suggests they have someone on the inside,’ Napoleon said grimly. ‘There should have been about six men on watch tonight, either to stop Thrush getting in, or see us getting out.’

The doormen in the building were employed by U.N.C.L.E., and they monitored all comings and goings. It was hard for anyone to slip in who shouldn’t be there.

‘I know,’ Illya said quietly. ‘So, who do we distrust? Just the men at the building? The people at Headquarters? If we tell anyone where we are, will we be exposing the boys to danger? What do you remember about that gas, Napoleon?’

Napoleon sucked in a slow breath. ‘Not as much as I should,’ he admitted. ‘Something Thrush developed, wasn’t it? One of our agents brought back the formula. The egg heads worked on it in the lab for a while, did a few tests on rats and monkeys. It – slowed you down, didn’t it? Something like that.’

‘It adversely affected the ability of your brain to give commands to your body,’ Illya said grimly. ‘Mostly for large muscle movement – walking, physical dexterity. You’d be able to talk, just about, but you couldn’t run away or use your hands. But don’t you remember the other thing, Napoleon? Don’t you remember about the smell?’

The car droned on along the streets for a little while. Light flashed in Illya’s eye as they passed buildings and street lights.

‘I don’t know, Illya,’ Napoleon said eventually. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t remember anything about the smell. It’s a long time since I read the report.’

‘It didn’t have a smell,’ Illya said meaningfully. ‘That was the point. When we brought in the formula the gas was odourless.  _ Our _ scientists added the odour to make it safe, just like they do with regular gas supplies in homes. They did it so if there was a leak in the lab while they were doing their experiments, they’d know. It was exactly that odour I smelt in the penthouse. If it hadn’t been for the oven timer waking me up, we all would have breathed in enough that we would have been helpless.’

‘Then the gas came from U.N.C.L.E., not Thrush,’ Napoleon said. ‘Something is rotten in the state of New York.’

‘Well done, Sherlock,’ Illya answered dryly.

‘Thanks,’ Napoleon returned. He huffed out breath. ‘We’re just getting onto the freeway now,’ he said. ‘I’ll stick on here, so we can drive as far as we can tonight, then lie low for a couple of days. Then we’ll find a phone and contact Mark. Not through U.N.C.L.E.. We’ll call him at home.’

‘As long as we can trust Mark,’ Illya said darkly.

‘We have to trust someone,’ Napoleon said rationally. ‘And we have to get these boys somewhere they can sleep properly, and get a good meal in the morning. They’re old enough to do without bottles no matter how much they holler for them, but they need food.’

‘If they’re not going to have bottles, we need to buy pacifiers,’ Illya said grimly.

‘We need to buy a carload of things,’ Napoleon said. ‘And get hold of a car that isn’t stolen.’

Illya dipped his mouth down and kissed the silk hair on Kolya’s head. The toddler was fast asleep against him, his legs dangling limply from the carrier against Illya’s thighs. He remembered when he had been so small he had curled like a capuchin monkey against his chest. He had hardly noticed them growing, but growth happened regardless.

‘There was a time before all this,’ he said wistfully.

‘Yeah, a time when we would have stood our ground and shot back,’ Napoleon replied. ‘Times change, don’t they? Suddenly the most precious thing isn’t our own lives.’

‘And these lives seem to require a caravan of goods to keep them going. I’ll make a mental shopping list,’ Illya said.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a dingy little motel that smelt of damp, somewhere outside of a town Illya had never heard of before. The receptionist hadn’t asked questions about two men with two toddlers arriving in the middle of the night with bags of purchases. They had dumped the stolen car a mile out of another little town and hired a new car with one of the forged identities that Napoleon carried as standard in his wallet. They wouldn’t be easy to trace now. Then they had shopped at a late-night supermarket, and driven on again along small, unpopular roads until they had found this place. Another forged identity meant that the car hire and the motel wouldn’t be quickly connected.

The boys, at least, had beakers, dummies, and a supply of powdered milk now, along with various foods they could easily snack on.

‘Which is all very well, but  _ I’m _ starving,’ Illya grumbled. He was sitting in an armchair next to a little heater with the boys on his lap. The room wasn’t very warm.

Napoleon leant over to kiss him on the top of his head. ‘If you’re all right holding the fort, I’ll drive out for something to eat,’ he said. ‘Hamburger okay? I saw a hamburger place on the main street as we drove through.’

‘If you can restrain yourself from smothering it in condiments,’ Illya said.

‘Do I ever smother your food in condiments now I know how much you hate them?’ Napoleon asked.

Illya smiled. ‘No, all right. I’ll admit you don’t do that. I’ll take a hamburger and anything going. Make sure you get something for the boys, too. Otherwise they’ll steal ours.’

‘You’re relaxing your junk food rule?’ Napoleon asked archly.

Illya grimaced at that. ‘For tonight, I’m just interested in eating, however we manage it. Just make sure they don’t salt the fries, and, seriously, don’t get any ketchup on them, because Kolya will throw a tantrum that’ll bring the police to our door.’

‘Just like his papa, huh?’ Napoleon asked laughingly. ‘No ketchup, and no salt. I get that. Don’t worry.’

‘I never worry,’ Illya said, but he would be hoping the entire time Napoleon was gone that he’d remember not to put ketchup on the fries. It was a  sure way to make Nikolai scream so loud that your ears rang.

‘Put the chain on the door when I’ve gone,’ Napoleon said. ‘Don’t open it to anyone but me.’

‘I know the drill, Napoleon,’ Illya told him firmly. ‘I was an agent, you know. We’ll be all right.’

‘I know that,’ Napoleon said, ‘but I’m allowed to worry.’

‘I have my gun,’ Illya said. ‘If anyone tries to get in I’ll unload the entire clip into them.’

He slipped the boys from his lap onto the floor.

‘No, I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said to them in Ukrainian, as they protested. ‘I’m just saying goodbye to daddy. He’s going out to get us some food.’

Napoleon kissed him on the lips, then went to put on his shoes. As soon as he had left, Illya slipped the door chai n into its slot, then came back to the chair and hoisted the boys onto his lap again. He rubbed his hands lightly against the boys’ shoulders.

‘How are you two doing?’ he asked. ‘Does anyone need a diaper change?’

Kolya said, ‘No,’ but he always said no. Illya lifted first Kolya then Pasha, feeling the weight of their nappies and sniffing lightly.

‘All right, you seem good,’ he decided. ‘So, what do you want to do while daddy’s out hunting down our dinner?’

If they had been at home the boys would have been asleep by now, but they had slept through the long car journey. They were wide awake now.

‘Story,’ Pasha asked, bouncing on his knee, and Illya grimaced.

‘I can’t read you a story, honey,’ he said. ‘I don’t have any books I can read.’

Kolya slipped off his knee and toddled away, coming back with a board book that he slapped onto Illya’s lap.

‘Story, papa,’ he asked, banging the book against Illya’s knee. ‘Book! Papa story!’

He sighed. He hadn’t realised Napoleon had bought a book in all the things they had got from the supermarket.

‘I can’t read this one, Kolenka,’ he said.

For as many of the boys’ picture books as he could, he had transcribed the words in braille and Napoleon had cut out the lines and stuck them under the pictures. That meant he could read to the boys even if he couldn’t see the pictures. This book was nothing but shiny smooth pages, though.

‘Papa can’t see,’ Pasha said, poking a hand near his eyes.

Illya captured his hand and gently pulled it away.

‘Not near papa’s eyes, Pavlik,’ he reminded him. The last thing he needed was for the prosthetic to be dislodged by a boisterous toddler. ‘Kolya, Pavel is right. Remember papa can’t see.’

Kolya banged the book on his knee again, and shouted, ‘Papa read! Papa story!’

‘ _ Nikolai _ ,’ Illya said sternly, taking the book from him. ‘No. I can’t read this one to you. I can’t see the words and there isn’t any braille in it.’

Kolya was starting to wail. Then Pasha knocked against Illya’s knee and tried to take the book from him.

‘Pasha read,’ he said. ‘Pasha read Kolya. Kolya, book. Look, Kolya. Duck go.’

Illya smiled, the warmth of pride swelling in him. ‘Hush, Kolya,’ he said, reaching out his hand to the crying boy. ‘Come here. Let’s read it with Pasha. Shall we read the book with Pasha?’

He got the boys settled back on his lap, and opened the book in front of them.

‘All right, Pashenka,’ he said. ‘All right, Kolenka. Come on. What’s happening in here? You tell papa what the story is.’

‘Papa duck go babies,’ Pasha said, tugging at the book.

‘No, let me hold it,’ Illya said softly. ‘Come on, Kolya. Be quiet so we can listen. What’s the duck doing, Pasha? Is there a papa duck and baby ducks? How many baby ducks are there?’

‘One, two, seven,’ Pasha said, poking at the book with each number. ‘Baby duck go papa duck.’

‘All right,’ Illya said. Kolya was quieting, and he jogged him a little on his knee. He turned the page in the book. ‘What’s happening now? What are the ducks doing?’

It took a long time to go through the book, with Pavel trying to describe what was on the pages in a mixture of English and Ukrainian, and Kolya chiming in as he calmed down and began vying with his brother to best describe what he saw. They hadn’t got to the end when he heard a bright, swift knock on the door, that sounded typical of Napoleon.

Illya went to the door. ‘Is that you?’

‘I come bearing dinner,’ Napoleon called through the thin wood, so Illya slipped the chain and opened the door.

Pavel and Nikolai both cried out, ‘Daddy!’ and a scent of fast food came into the room as he entered.

‘It’s colder than a polar bear’s toenails out there,’ Napoleon said as he shut the door behind him. Bags rustled as he crossed the room. ‘All right. All right, boys,’ he said, because the toddlers were crowding round him. ‘Illya, there’s no table but there are a couple of trays I can put the food out on. Shall we eat on the floor here, around the fire?’

‘If you can keep an eye on the boys,’ Illya said. At least there wouldn’t be ketchup for them to smear everywhere.

‘They can have a tray each,’ Napoleon decided. ‘We’ll eat off our knees. Now, I didn’t get any soda, Illya, so you don’t need to chide me. I got a couple of coffees for us. I’ll make the boys a beaker of milk each. They have some fries between them, and a couple of kiddies’ burgers. I got them to put in some lettuce, too.’

‘Give me their food,’ Illya suggested. ‘You sort out their milk.’

Napoleon gave him a tray with the food on it. Illya ran his hands over what was there. A couple of polystyrene containers, and two little cardboard containers of fries. He put the fries on either side of the tray, then opened up the containers which held the burgers and chopped up lettuce.

‘Okay, boys,’ he said, putting the tray down on the floor and kneeling down beside it. ‘There you go. No, take a side each, please. Kolya take one side. Pasha, take the other side. Sit down and eat. I don’t want you wandering around with food.’ He looked up towards Napoleon with a smile. ‘Hey, I think this is the first time Kolya’s been happy to have a meal without his highchair!’

Napoleon came over and put a hand on his shoulder.

‘Kolenka, there’s your beaker. Pashenka, there’s yours.’ He laughed. ‘Kolya’s happy enough. He’s lining up his fries like a picket fence again, Illya. Perfectly parallel, a gap between each one. He looks like he’s trying to solve an algebra problem, he’s concentrating so hard.’

‘The sign of an organised mind. I used to do that kind of thing as a kid, and he’s quiet, at least,’ Illya said. ‘Pasha, don’t touch Kolya’s fries, will you? You let him look after his food. You look after yours. Napoleon, will you make sure Pasha doesn’t touch Kolya’s food? I should have put them on different trays.’

‘I’ll watch them. Don’t worry,’ Napoleon said, leaning over to kiss him. ‘Look, here’s yours. That’s the biggest burger they do. Bacon, cheese, lettuce, onions. Everything but ketchup and mustard.’

‘Mayonnaise?’ Illya asked, opening up the polystyrene and bending forward to inhale the scent.

‘Of course, mayonnaise, my love, and pickles. Here, you take the other tray so you have somewhere for your fries. I’ll sit down here and make sure the boys keep to their own food. Do you want your coffee? I can put it on the side table?’

‘Thank you,’ Illya said, around a mouthful of burger.

The taste exploded in his mouth. They ate food like this less often now neither of them were active agents, and now they tried to have proper meals with the boys. It was bad, but it was also so very good. The coffee wasn’t very strong, but the food made up for it. He was starving.

‘This is good,’ he said through a mouthful of food. He picked up a few fries and pushed them into his mouth. ‘The boys are eating?’

‘Pasha has deconstructed his burger. Kolya’s pulled the pickles out of his but he’s trying to eat it whole like we are. I think some of the food is going on the inside, at any rate.’

‘We should try to get them to sleep when we’ve eaten. I saw you got them a book in the supermarket. They were trying to read it with me while you were gone.’

‘Yeah, I got a book as well as that handful of toys. They’re going to need something to occupy themselves with. There are two beds, Illya, a double and a twin. I reckon we could get the boys to sleep in the twin, lying across it so they don’t roll out. We can take the double.’

Illya frowned. ‘I’m not happy with them being on their own like that. I’d rather have them close. Anyway, Kolya’s not going to sleep on his own without Mr Duck, and if he starts asking for Mr Duck, Pasha will want Mr Teddy, and we’ll end up with them sleeping with us anyway.’

Napoleon sighed. ‘We could push the beds together and have them in the middle,’ he said. ‘But I kinda hoped...’

‘Napoleon, we can’t do that with the boys in here,’ Illya said sternly. ‘It’s different at home. They’re in their cots, in another room. What if they woke up?’

‘They’re eighteen months old, Illya. They wouldn’t exactly be blinded by a glimpse of their parents making love,’ Napoleon said.

‘Two men, Napoleon,’ Illya said rather tersely.

‘Two men,’ Napoleon echoed. ‘They know we love each other, Illya. They can’t see anything wrong in that. It’s not any different than if they got a glimpse of their mother and father doing something. You know that.’

‘I know,’ Illya said, but he still felt uncomfortable.

He had become settled in his relationship with Napoleon, but it felt so fragile in some ways now they had the boys. As soon as children were involved the general public seemed to think they were granted a say in private relationships, and the majority of the general public thought their love was disgusting. The law certainly did. They kept everything they did behind closed doors, but he was terrified of someone taking their boys away.

‘Never mind,’ Napoleon said. ‘Will you at least let me kiss you?’

Illya smiled. ‘I’ll let you kiss me,’ he said. ‘I want to spend some time just holding you, Napoleon, if you can manage to do that without your libido taking over.’

‘Of course I can do that,’ Napoleon promised him. ‘Look, let’s get them to sleep in the big bed, and we can take a little time to ourselves. Then we can settle down for the night on either side of them. They’ll be safe like that.

  


((O))

  


Illya lay on his back in the dark of the motel room, listening to the drone and swoosh of traffic. They were so close to the freeway that the noise was constant. The light from headlamps blurred across the ceiling from one side to the other, over and over, passing in a relentless flicker that was renewed as soon as it died away. 

He could hear the soft breathing of the boys between them. On the far side, on the single bed pushed up against the double, Napoleon was snoring gently. The warm weight of one of the boys was against Illya’s arm. 

He turned onto his side and let his face rest against the silk hair of his sleeping son. He couldn’t tell which boy it was. It was too dark to see if the hair was light or dark, and when they were asleep their personality differences melted away. In wakefulness, Kolya was strident and determined, sometimes volcanic, sometimes so pedantic it made Illya’s head ache. Pasha was of a milder temperament, but Illya sensed a careful and cautious intelligence that one day would come into its own.

He laid his hand lightly on the boy’s chest. He thought it was Pasha. He’d been wearing the t-shirt with the appliqué duck on it, and he could feel it under his palm. The boy squirmed in sleep and nuzzled closer in to him, making a little animal noise. He smelt of the milk he had drunk before going to sleep, and the warmth and scent radiated from his warm body. It felt impossible to love anything more than these two small, unique human beings that he and Napoleon had made. Sometimes it felt like more than his heart could bear.

He curled his arm over the boy and held him, feeling the tattoo of his heart under his fingertips and the rhythm of his breathing moving delicate ribs. There had been so much of that when the boys were newborn. It had felt like a chaos at first, trying to keep these amazing, fragile beings alive, but there had always been the scent of milk and the warm smallness of their bodies either bawling and wriggling in wakefulness, or soft and heavy in sleep. He had marvelled in the reflex grip of a whole fist around his forefinger, and the strong suck of a hot mouth on his fingertip. He had marvelled at how such a small and new thing could be so determined to hang on, to suck food inside, to scream for attention. Just when he had felt he couldn’t bear the unremitting cycle of waking, crying, feeding, sleeping in snatches, waking again, Napoleon had gasped one day and said, ‘Illya, Pasha’s smiling. A real smile!’

‘Gas,’ Illya had suggested, but Napoleon had insisted, ‘No, he’s smiling, Illya. He really is smiling.’

Later on, the boys had begun to laugh, and Illya had felt the same bright spark of joy that Napoleon had gained on seeing those first smiles.

He inhaled the sweet scent of the boy, and slipped his hand across to feel Kolya next to him. Napoleon moved, and then strong, adult fingers were curling into his and squeezing gently.

‘All right, Illya?’ Napoleon asked.

‘Yes,’ he whispered softly. ‘Don’t wake them up.’

‘Maybe they’ll sleep through the night,’ Napoleon whispered back.

Illya gave a little huff. Sometimes they slept through the night, but usually if one of the boys did the other chose not to.

‘Pessimistic Russian,’ Napoleon chided him. ‘Don’t worry, honey. I have the powdered milk and their beakers by the bed. If one of them wakes up I’ll look after him. You go to sleep.’

  


((O))

  


He woke when it was light, blinking sleepily and pushing the covers back from his face. It took him a moment to remember where he was. The room smelt odd, and a little damp, and the beige colours weren’t what he usually woke to. He wiped the sleep from his eyes, and turned his ear to the room, remembering about the motel. That was why the air smelt of fast food. He could hear the boys babbling quietly between themselves, Napoleon on the phone, and a faraway voice coming through the receiver.

‘No, we’re safe so far,’ Napoleon was saying. ‘I’m not going to say where we are. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but there’s someone in the organisation we can’t trust.’

Illya sat up in bed and swung his feet to the floor, feeling the time on his watch. It was only a little past seven.

‘Napoleon, is that Mark?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ Napoleon said quickly, turning his head away from the phone. ‘Look, Mark, Illya’s awake. You should have a word with him.’

He put the receiver down on the surface with a clack and came to touch Illya’s arm and guide him over to the phone.

‘There’s a chair just there,’ he said, touching Illya’s fingers to the roughly woven fabric. ‘Here’s the receiver.’

Illya sat and took the receiver. It was warm from Napoleon’s hand. One of the boys called out, ‘Papa!’ and Napoleon said quietly, ‘Papa’s on the telephone, Pasha. Shush, now.’

‘Illya,’ Mark said, tinny through the receiver. ‘Napoleon says you both think there’s someone on the inside who’s gone over to Thrush? That’s why he phoned me at home at this godawful hour.’

‘They must have,’ Illya said in a clipped tone. ‘They got through the doormen, all the way up to our place, and managed to install some way to pump that gas into the penthouse. Maybe they could do that without inside help, but there wasn’t a single man there when we escaped. One of them would have heard the shots. The gas must have come from our labs, too. The deterrent scent was identical. I need you to go round, Mark, and check out how they did it. Be careful of the gas. I put the kitchen extractor on even before I knew about it, but you can’t bank on that having cleared the air.’

‘All right,’ Mark said. ‘Okay, I’ll keep it close to the people I can trust at this end. I can get you via communicator, yes?’

‘You can,’ Illya said, ‘but be cautious what you say. We can’t afford to give away our location.’

‘Look, Illya, mate, have you considered taking the boys somewhere safe?’ Mark asked then. ‘Napoleon said he thinks they’re safer with you, but – ’

‘They’re staying with us,’ Illya said firmly. ‘When we don’t know who we can trust, there isn’t anywhere safe to take them. If you flush out the problem at headquarters, we can bring them back there, but until then, they’re better with us. You know if Thrush get them they’ll use them as leverage.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Mark said heavily. ‘They’ve got vicious of late. Maybe you’re right to keep it all as close as possible. I’ll make investigations my end. Don’t worry, Illya,’ he said in a grim tone. ‘I can be vicious too.’

‘Good,’ Illya said darkly. ‘Be as vicious as you like. I don’t have any patience for traitors.’


	4. Chapter 4

They spent hours on the road again, tracking north west, trying to find somewhere obscure enough to hide out for a while but with enough shops to supply the boys’ needs. They bought car seats, clothes, and enough nappies and other supplies to fill the back of the hired station wagon.

‘So much for travelling light,’ Napoleon commented as he swung the boot shut on their latest purchases.

‘There is no travelling light, with children,’ Illya replied. The boys were with him, a hand in each of his, and he had one ear on the traffic around them in the car park. Pasha tended to happily let one of his parents hold his hand, but Kolya always wanted to pull free and run away. ‘You bought reins, didn’t you?’

‘Kiddy leashes,’ Napoleon said with a chuckle. ‘Yes, I bought two sets.’

‘Good,’ Illya said. Whether or not people made jokes about them, it was a vast relief to be able to have the children connected to him like that.

‘All right,’ Napoleon said. ‘If those enquiries we made are right, we should be able to find a place to rent a few miles out of town. It’s good countryside, Illya. Tending to hills and trees, but there are other houses around. I don’t want anywhere too isolated. Even an untrained innocent is better than nothing when you need help, especially with the kids in tow.’

‘An untrained innocent might be perfect,’ Illya said seriously. ‘If you can lay hands on a spinster school teacher with yearning ovaries, who’s never heard of U.N.C.L.E. or Thrush, they might be the best help of all.’

Napoleon laughed. ‘You want me to uncork the flirting with a strange woman?’ he asked. ‘You always hated that.’

‘Not when it furthered our mission,’ Illya said.

His partner snorted. ‘Regardless of whether it furthered our mission. You used to look daggers at me if I so much as smiled in a woman’s direction.’

‘Let’s get the boys in their car seats,’ Illya said. ‘They’ll hate them, but at least they’ll be contained as we drive.’

‘For as long as it takes for Kolya to figure how to wriggle out of the straps, at least,’ Napoleon said, picking up one of the boys.

‘I’ll sit in the back, if necessary.’

Illya picked up the other boy, and saw Kolya’s fair hair and the pink fuzz of his face. He kissed him on the cheek, and hugged his arms around him even as he squirmed to try to get down.

‘No, I’ve caught you,’ he said in Ukrainian, with a grin. ‘Little fish. Come on. We’re going for a drive.’ He switched back to English. ‘I think I’ll start out in the back. He’s feeling frisky.’

  


((O))

  


The house was perfectly suitable for their small family, with  _ beds enough for the bachelors _ , as the lady who rented it told him,  _ and cots for the kiddies _ . She saw them inside with a hand on Illya’s shoulder, cooing at how beautiful the boys were, and how much they looked like him. Illya wanted to be left alone so that he could look around the house, but he tried to be polite.

‘This little one takes after your wife, I guess,’ she said, and Illya knew she was talking about Pasha.

‘He does,’ Illya said, restraining a grin. ‘Yes, my other half is very beautiful.’

‘So sweet of you to think of taking the boys away and giving her a break,’ she continued. ‘And Mr Solo, you must be an absolute angel to come along to look after all her boys for her. Such a lot for you to manage.’

Napoleon laughed, and Illya pressed his lips together, turning a little away so she wouldn’t see his face. As soon as they were left alone he let the breath hiss out.

‘As if no blind person could possibly look after their children,’ he said disgustedly.

‘Now, she meant well, love,’ Napoleon told him softly, kissing him on the cheek. ‘You know she meant well.’

‘Of course she meant well,’ he muttered. ‘They always mean well. But I look forward to the day when the general populace realise that sight isn’t the be all and end all of existence.’

‘Didn’t you ever think that?’ Napoleon reminded him gently.

He sighed. Yes, he had thought that. He remembered the early days of blindness, and how he had felt like a person half dead and utterly helpless.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s get everything in and sorted out. The boys need their dinner. If you give me a quick tour of the kitchen I can get that made while you sort the rest of the stuff.’

‘Hey,’ Napoleon said, stopping him with a hand on his cheek.

Illya knew that touch so well. He tilted his head up a little and they kissed.

‘Don’t stress,’ Napoleon told him softly.

‘Hah,’ Illya laughed shortly.

He could hear the boys running excitedly in and out of the rooms of this new place they had to explore. There were so many things to stress about, from whether or not there were stair gates, to Thrush coming and ending all their lives, the boys’ before they had even really begun.

‘We’ll be all right,’ Napoleon said. ‘ _ They’ll _ be all right. We won’t let anything happen to them.’

Illya would step in front of them and take a bullet for them – but if he did that he wouldn’t be able to protect them from what came next. If U.N.C.L.E. had never existed for him, the boys would be safe. But if U.N.C.L.E. had never existed for him, he would never had met Napoleon, and the boys would never have been born. It was too much of a conundrum to be worth thinking about. There was never any point in looking back and wondering about what might have been.

‘I’ll get their dinner started,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll check in with Mark and see how things are developing at his end.’

‘All right,’ Napoleon told him. ‘The kitchen’s just through this door on the left. Let me help you get what you need.’

  


((O))

  


For a little while, they were able to relax. Illya lay on the floor on his back, hoisting Pasha and then Kolya above him on his hands, making them fly, and scream with excitement. Napoleon saw to lighting the fire and washing the dishes, and then came and joined in, tumbling about on the rug in the wide living space.

‘Daddy be dog,’ Pasha insisted, so Napoleon played at chasing them on all fours, while Illya stayed lying on the floor, providing a base where they were safe if they were sitting on his chest.

‘All right,’ Napoleon said at last. ‘It’s bedtime, boys. Time for bed, okay. I’ll come read you a story. There are books up there,’ he added, in an aside to Illya.

‘Papa read,’ Kolya asked, bumping up and down on Illya’s chest so that he groaned under the weight. ‘Papa read train book.’

‘Papa can’t read to you here,’ Illya told him firmly, catching his hands. ‘Stop bouncing. No, Kolenka. I’ve told you that. We don’t have the train book here. Would you like me to give you two your bath, and I’ll tell you a story that my mama used to tell me when I was a little boy? Then daddy can read one of the new books we have here. Would you like that? Pasha? Kolya?’

‘Pasha take papa bath,’ Pasha said, grabbing at his hand and trying to pull him upright.

Illya grinned. ‘Do you think you’re strong enough to pull me up?’

He held out both hands so that Kolya could take hold too, then pantomimed huffing and struggling to sit up as they pulled.

‘What strong boys you are,’ he said. ‘All right, Pashenka. You show papa where the bath is. Napoleon, will you sort out the towels and find some fresh diapers?’

Napoleon took his hand then and helped him stand. He kissed him lightly, then said, ‘I’ll sort out all of that, Illya. You okay with the boys helping you?’

‘I’m fine,’ Illya promised. He hardly knew all the ins and outs of this house, but he had been up to the bathroom once already, and he was confident that he’d manage.

The boys turned into slippery, giggling, splashing fish in the bath. Illya knelt at the side of the tub, trying to wash them in the moments when they were still enough, and trying to make the story he was telling heard through the splashing. Then, wrapped in thick towels, Napoleon carried them through into the little bedroom, and he and Illya each got nappies and clothing onto them before settling them down in the cots.

‘Kolya will be out of that by morning,’ Illya said, slipping his fingers over the rounded wooden bars of the cot side.

‘Of course he will,’ Napoleon said easily. ‘But he’ll just come and find us in our bed, so he’ll be all right. I’ll make sure the stair gate is closed.’

‘Stairs is one thing they’re not used to.’

‘Maybe not, but they’ve been tackling them beautifully since we got here, and the gates are there, top and bottom.’

‘All right,’ Illya sighed. ‘Do you want me to stay while you read to them?’

‘You could go fix their milk,’ Napoleon suggested. ‘That’s the one thing I haven’t done.’

‘All right,’ Illya said, kissing him on the ear. ‘I’ll be back in a minute. I’ll put coffee on while I’m down there.’

  


((O))

  


It was a strange bedroom and a strange bed, a little smaller than the one at home, but it was so good, at last, to be lying together with Napoleon, the boys fast asleep in another room. It was so good to lie in stillness and silence, his flesh touching Napoleon’s flesh.

Illya turned on his side and slipped his arm over Napoleon’s chest, nuzzling his lips at his partner’s ear. He could taste the light saltiness of his skin, and he bit lightly at the flesh.

‘Mmm, you’ll give me ideas,’ Napoleon said warmly, turning his head to catch Illya’s lips.

‘You don’t need to be given ideas,’ Illya said. ‘You have ideas enough of your own.’

‘Well, new ideas are always welcome,’ Napoleon said. ‘Isn’t that what you always say? Usually just before shutting them down and going with your own ideas.’

‘I hope Mark is managing at Headquarters,’ Illya worried then, his thoughts sparked by Napoleon’s words.

‘Of course he is,’ Napoleon told him firmly. ‘He’s an extremely experienced agent and he and April have spent longer than this fronting for you in the past. Remember that time we had when the boys were born? What was that? A month? Everything ran smooth as clockwork.’

‘It did, you’re right,’ Illya said. He hated to be out of control, but he had to admit that Mark and April were excellent stand-ins. ‘It’s a bit different right now, though. There’s a problem in U.N.C.L.E.’

‘And that’s why we’re here, not there,’ Napoleon reminded him. ‘We  _ can’t _ be there. We have to keep the boys safe. We can’t take any protection from U.N.C.L.E. until Mark has routed out the moles. All we can do is stay out of the way and take care of these boys.’

‘I know,’ Illya said. ‘I do know that. I just wish I were in my office and the boys were – I don’t know – in a steel vault somewhere. Somewhere safer than an out of the way cottage with a door that could be kicked in by a high school kid.’

‘There’s nothing else we can do at the moment,’ Napoleon told him firmly. ‘Nothing. We’re doing what we can. When Mark gets back to us and lets us know he’s sorted the situation back home, we can go back, and the boys will be safe, and you’ll be back at work. Right now, we’re doing all we can. So why don’t you try to let go, huh? Relax.’

He stroked his fingers down Illya’s cheek, and Illya smiled. Napoleon’s touch was like silk.

‘All right,’ he murmured, stroking his own hand over Napoleon’s naked flank. ‘All right, Napoleon. I will try to relax. Why don’t you do what you can to take my mind off it?’

‘What would you like me to do, Mr Kuryakin?’ Napoleon asked silkily. ‘Your wish is my command.’

‘Oh no,’ Illya said firmly. ‘No, you told me to relax. I’m not making any decisions here. I’m in your hands.’

‘Well, that’s an invitation impossible to refuse,’ Napoleon said, practically purring.

His hand slipped down between them and stroked firmly along Illya’s cock. Illya stretched, smiling, and reached down to Napoleon, feeling the warm weight of his own thickening organ, the softness of his balls. Napoleon’s hand was doing impossibly wonderful things to him, coaxing him to hardness, and the weight of worry was beginning to melt away. Napoleon could always do that to him. He reduced him to a creature, his only thoughts being of pleasure and physical sensation.

‘Here,’ Napoleon said, slipping a little tube into Illya’s hand. ‘That’s what I want you to do.’

The invitation was irresistible. He took the tube and used it to slick the lubricant along the hard, hot length of his own cock. He put it on his fingers and stroked between Napoleon’s legs, finding the tight opening there, slipping his fingers into the blood heat of Napoleon’s body and stretching that intimate channel. Then he positioned himself over Napoleon, leaning down to kiss his face and neck and chest, and slipped into the compressing tightness of his body.

It went to his head like alcohol, the sensation expanding to fill every inch of him. The need to rock himself deeper and deeper caused his hips to move without conscious thought. He needed, needed, to be right inside his lover, needed to feel the compression around him. He put a hand on Napoleon’s cock and his partner groaned with his own need.

‘God,’ he murmured, pushing and pumping in the same rhythm, entering Napoleon and stroking the steel of his cock in the tunnel of his clenched hand. It was so good. It was everything, all there was in the world. He could feel it coming, feel it building in his balls, in his abdomen. Napoleon was crying out softly, trying to stifle the noises he wanted to make. Illya thrust deeper, harder, and Napoleon’s cock was jerking in his hand, sending slippery fluid into his palm. With a gasp he could hardly hold in, Illya came, deep inside Napoleon’s heat, thrusting his hips forward to hold himself as deeply as possible inside. He never wanted to leave that perfect place.

He was lying over Napoleon’s body, their sweat slick between them. He turned his head a little and kissed Napoleon’s jaw. Napoleon turned to catch his lips, slipping his tongue into Illya’s mouth. The kiss was long, and deep, and slow.

‘I would marry you, if I could,’ Napoleon said softly when the kiss faded away. ‘I would marry you in an instant. I love you, Illya.’

Illya slipped his fingers through the sweat-wet hair at Napoleon’s temple, and kissed his lips again.

‘We have everything we need,’ he said. ‘We don’t need a ring. I love you too.’

He sensed the little darkness in Napoleon. It was a matter of great worry to him that their relationship had no legal founding. If Illya were sick in hospital, it would be his parents who could make decisions for him, not Napoleon, and vice versa. If anything happened to him, it was Illya’s name on the boys’ birth certificates, and Napoleon would have no rights over them at all. Their relationship was as strong as any marriage, but sometimes it felt as if it were balancing on a fragile web, and if one strand broke the whole thing could tumble.

‘I  _ love _ you,’ Illya said again. ‘And everything will be all right.’

‘When we’re back home I’m going to see a lawyer,’ Napoleon said. ‘No, it’s all right. I know someone who will be very discreet. I know there’s only so much the law can do, but everything that can be done to bind us together in law, we will do. Even if it means I have to adopt you.’

Illya snorted with laughter. The idea of Napoleon adopting him seemed ridiculous.

‘I’m serious, Illya,’ Napoleon said. ‘We’re man and wife and we need the legality to reflect that.’

Illya snorted again. ‘Who do you make the wife?’ he asked. ‘Not me, I hope.’

‘All right, man and man. Husband and husband. However you want to term it. But I want somehow to have that reflected in law.’

‘They can’t do that,’ Illya said softly. It was an old argument between them, that had started even before they had thought of having children. ‘You know that, Napoleon. Our relationship is unnatural and illegal. The law can’t protect us.’

‘Not unnatural,’ Napoleon chided him.

‘In the eyes of the world, it’s unnatural,’ Illya said relentlessly. ‘Maybe we know how natural it is, but  _ they _ don’t.’

‘They’re idiots. I will do whatever it takes,’ Napoleon said, and Illya knew to leave it at that. ‘Now, let’s go clean up.’

They washed in the little bathroom and came back to bed to lie together, growing warm and sleepy, content after the lovemaking that had eased out the tensions. Illya was just dropping into sleep when Napoleon said, ‘Well, hello, bright eyes. Want to hop on board?’

‘Kolya?’ Illya asked sleepily.

‘Who else?’ Napoleon said in an indulgent tone.

Illya was closest to the door, and he turned and held out his arm. ‘Come on, Kolenka,’ he said, and little fingers grabbed onto his. He helped the boy get up into the bed, and lifted him over to lie between him and Napoleon. The toddler snuggled down into the warmth between them, and Illya kissed his head. No matter how wrong society thought this was, he knew it was so, so right.


	5. Chapter 5

Illya was making pancakes, shirt sleeves rolled up, his communicator tucked into his shirt’s breast pocket, while Mark’s voice came tinnily through the speaker. It was a light, airy kitchen, and he was learning quite quickly where everything was. It was pleasant to be standing there with the light from the big window on his face, listening to the spitting and popping of the fat in the frying pan. It felt slightly surreal to be in this situation, standing in a rented cottage as if he were on holiday, but dealing with such deadly serious business through the communicator.

‘We still haven’t identified anyone in particular,’ Mark was saying. ‘We found the doorman from your building back in his apartment. Looked like he was drunk, but I’m thinking they slipped him something. Blood tests will tell us more. Others were told their shifts had been rearranged, but no one seems to know by whom. Seems it was an internal memo that doesn’t have a source we can find. It’s like Chinese bloody whispers.’

‘All right,’ Illya said. He patted at the frying pancake with his spatula, then slipped the tool underneath to flip it. ‘Keep on it, Mark,’ he said. ‘We need these people, or this person, routed out. I want to get my boys home.’

‘I’ll just bet you do,’ Mark murmured. ‘I’m going to go down and talk to the doorman when I’ve finished with you. He’s still pretty groggy, but I’m hoping he’ll remember something. Sounds like he was at a bar the night before, so maybe that was where they slipped him the mickey finn. He might remember someone’s face.’

‘Are you managing to handle the rest of the business?’ Illya asked in concern. ‘How about the Venetian Affair?’

‘We’re handling it all between us, April and me,’ Mark assured him. ‘April’s looking after most of the regular stuff, while I track down these traitors in our ranks.’

‘Hmm,’ Illya said. He flipped the cooked pancake onto a pla te and concentrated on pouring another, his tongue caught between his teeth. Then he put the jug back down and said, ‘You know that lie detector the labs were developing isn’t reliable yet? It’s giving false positives.’

‘Yes, I know that,’ Mark said patiently. ‘I’m not about to hang someone because of what a bundle of wires and mumbo-jumbo says. I’m relying on my instincts and my training. Illya, do you mind if I go through some of your personal communications?’

‘No, of course,’ Illya said quickly. ‘Anything that you need. If they’re only in braille Nancy will translate.’

‘Good,’ Mark said. ‘I’d better go. I want a word with a few of the guys in Section 3, and I don’t want to hang on the line too long. The longer we talk, the more chance of someone triangulating your position.’

‘All right,’ Illya said pensively.

He knew there was a risk of triangulation, but he needed to be able to talk to Mark, and there wasn’t much choice when he was in headquarters. It was either talk through a phone line that could be hacked, or through communicators that could be triangulated.

‘Good luck,’ he said belatedly.

‘I don’t need luck,’ Mark replied. ‘I need diligence, intelligence, and loyalty – and luckily I have a good handful of men who still have that in spades. Speak to you later, Illya.’

Illya closed his communicator and stood over his cooking, listening to the sizzling of the pancake batter in the oil. The steam and scent brushed past his face, and as he turned the pancake a little oil spat onto his hands. He wiped it off on a towel, and called over his shoulder, ‘Napoleon, I’ll have the first two ready in just a minute. You want to get the boys in their chairs?’

‘On our way,’ Napoleon called from the other room, and Illya smiled as he heard the footsteps and chatter of the boys coming in with their father. The highchairs scraped on the floor as Napoleon got the boys into their seats. Illya flipped the second pancake onto a plate just in time for Napoleon to come and take it.

‘Do they have their bibs?’ he asked.

‘Yes, dear, of course they have their bibs,’ Napoleon assured him. ‘Not that that will stop them getting maple syrup all over their hands and faces, in their hair, on their clothes, the floor... Bathtime afterwards, I think.’

‘Of course,’ Illya said with a wry smile. ‘You want some?’

‘Your pancakes? I’ll take as many as there are going,’ Napoleon said warmly. ‘Don’t forget to make some for yourself, though.’

‘I’ll make a stack,’ Illya said. ‘I just want to get the boys started so they’re not hungry.’

He kept on pouring batter and cooking pancake after pancake, until there was a warm, fragrant stack of them on the plate by the cooker. Napoleon spent the time making coffee while the boys sat in their highchairs eating pancakes and babbling between themselves. Then Illya carried his stack over to the table and took his place.

‘Butter’s just here, and the syrup’s next to it,’ Napoleon said, taking his hand to show him. ‘Here’s your coffee.’

‘Ah, this is good,’ Illya said as he took a couple of pancakes and poured syrup over them. ‘I could almost forget why we’re here.’

Saying that made him think of exactly why they were there. They had travelled hundreds of miles, but he didn’t feel safe. If it were just him and Napoleon he would feel fine, but the boys made him feel so vulnerable. As a family, they were vulnerable. He cut and speared a little of his pancake and brought it to his mouth, mulling. He couldn’t feel that it was a mistake to have the boys, but he wished there were some way of making them safe; some way that didn’t involve raising them in a prison or giving up U.N.C.L.E. for good. If the choice came down to it, he would give up U.N.C.L.E.. He would have to.

Napoleon put a hand over his.

‘We’re doing what we can, Illya,’ he said.

‘I know,’ Illya murmured. ‘It feels like it isn’t enough.’

‘Thrush are legion, if it’s Thrush that’s after us – and that’s almost a definite,’ Napoleon reminded him. ‘We could take them to Mexico, Canada, Europe, Antarctica, and there’s still a chance they’ll track us down. The only way to make them safe is to find this infection in U.N.C.L.E. and kill it at source. Mark’s doing what he can.’

Illya sighed. The scent of the syrup and butter and pancakes filled the air, and the boys kept chattering on, and outside wind was rustling tree branches and making something flap over and over with a rhythmic snap. This was such a domestic setting. It felt so far away from the evils of his job, but it also felt so far from control. Maybe they should have tried to take the boys to headquarters. They could have kept them there, in a safe suite, until the threat had passed. But he knew that Napoleon was right. Headquarters were as unsafe as anywhere else right now, and maybe moreso. He couldn’t bear the thought that his boys were in danger.

‘Well,’ he said stoutly, trying to pull himself together. ‘I suppose there isn’t much we can do, is there? I don’t like having nothing I can do, but I can’t change that. What shall we do with the boys today?’

Napoleon rested a hand over his, and Illya felt that it was slightly sticky. He turned his hand over so he was holding Napoleon’s, and laughed.

‘Baths, I think,’ Illya said, ‘for all of my boys. Then you can go shopping for dinner and I’ll entertain them about the house.’

‘We could all go shopping for dinner,’ Napoleon suggested.

‘I’d rather stay here with them for now,’ Illya demurred. ‘Twin toddlers and a blind man. We’re noticeable. You shop, I’ll cook again, and we’ll keep our heads down.’

  


((O))

  


By the next day the weather had grown cold and heavy. Napoleon looked through the window in the morning and said that snow was falling outside. Illya had grunted, because he was tired of snow, but the boys ran excitedly to the window and started to clamour.

‘We should take them outside,’ Napoleon said. ‘They haven’t had a chance to see snow outside of a city.’

‘Snow is cold and troublesome inside a city, and cold and troublesome outside of a city,’ Illya said dourly, but he helped dress the boys and donned a thick cardigan and his coat so that he could go outside with Napoleon.

‘Just a short walk,’ Napoleon said. ‘I don’t think it’s icy, and we can stick to the grass. There’s a wood just down the road. They’ll love running around in the trees.’

Illya stepped outside with Pasha’s hand in his and looked around at the colours before him. The snow hadn’t yet settled, and everything was dull browns and greens that blended into a white sky.

‘Have you still got your hat on, Pashenka?’ he asked, patting his hand softly on the boy’s head. He liked to take his hat off as soon as he had it on.

‘Cold, papa,’ Pasha said to him. The hat was still on. ‘Daddy, cold. Daddy not got hat.’

Kolya chimed in from near Napoleon, ‘Daddy no hat! Daddy hat!’

Illya laughed. ‘Napoleon, you’ve been ratted out. Why aren’t you wearing a hat?’

‘Er,’ Napoleon said, abashed and laughing. ‘I’ve just combed my hair.’

‘Vanity,’ Illya tutted.

There was a click, and Illya froze. One moment of relaxing their guard outside the house, and this was the result. He knew that sound too intimately to misunderstand it. It was the sound of someone releasing the safety on a gun.

He closed his hand harder around Pasha’s, trying to work out how many men there were. They must have been lying in wait, because he hadn’t heard footsteps. Quietly, he said, ‘Napoleon.’

‘Yeah,’ Napoleon replied. ‘Stand still, Illya. Don’t make a move.’

Illya kept his hand very firm around Pasha’s, listening hard. He wanted to think that even an enemy wouldn’t shoot an eighteen month old child, but he felt as if the blood in his veins had turned to ice.

‘There’s a van down the road. We’re going to walk to it, and you’re going to get in it,’ a masculine voice said.

Illya bit the inside of his lip. ‘You don’t need Napoleon and you don’t need the boys,’ he said. ‘Take me. Leave them behind.’

The man laughed. ‘And lose my guarantee that you’ll behave? Drop your weapons and walk.’

These things had felt thrilling in the past, even if they had been very, very serious. Now, he felt sick. There was nothing he could do. He couldn’t tell the boys to run. They were too young to understand, too young to survive alone, in the freezing cold, even if they did run. He thought of the sound of a gun spitting out its bullet and it hitting one of his boys.

‘All right,’ he said, trying to sound calmer than he felt. ‘I’m going to reach for my gun and drop it.’

He let go of his cane rather than letting go of Pasha’s hand, and it clattered to the ground. He didn’t expect to be allowed to keep it, anyway. He reached inside his jacket and retrieved his gun, and dropped it.

‘Papa cane!’ Pasha said in consternation, tugging at his hand. He liked to get it for Illya when he needed it.

‘No, Pasha,’ Illya said in a low voice. He picked the boy up and held him against his side with one arm. ‘It’s all right. Papa doesn’t need it right now.’

Napoleon gave up his gun too, then he touched Illya’s arm to guide him. They walked for some distance down the unmetalled track that led to the house. There were other houses set back from the road, Napoleon had told him, but if anyone saw them they either were wary enough not to interfere, or didn’t see anything to cause concern. After a quarter of a mile they got up into the back of a dark, empty van that smelt of diesel and damp wood. The doors closed behind them. Illya sat down on the bare floor, and a moment later the engine roared into life and the van started moving.

‘Are we alone?’ Illya asked in a murmur. He was holding Pasha on his lap, jogging him gently because he was starting to fuss.

‘Yeah,’ Napoleon said. ‘But that doesn’t mean we’re not being listened to.’

‘How many?’ Illya asked.

‘Three,’ Napoleon replied. ‘Only one spoke. They were all muffled up with scarves or balaclavas, so I couldn’t see their faces.’

‘Did anyone see us?’

‘I don’t know,’ Napoleon said heavily. ‘It’s a cold, quiet morning. I don’t know if anyone was looking out the windows. They kept their guns concealed once we knew they had them. We could have just been taking a walk with friends, to anyone who saw us. The van was parked behind trees, out of sight of the houses.’

Illya shuffled closer to Napoleon, reaching out a hand. He touched the arm of his coat, and slipped his fingers over him to find that he had Kolya on his lap. He moved close enough to lean his head in towards Napoleon’s ear, so he could whisper.

‘I recognised the voice. I think it was Walmersley.’

He felt Napoleon’s little start. Napoleon put his mouth to Illya’s ear, his breath warm and moist against his skin.

‘Nathan  Walmersley, f rom Section 3?’

‘Yes,’ Illya murmured.

Napoleon breathed out slowly. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Not a hundred percent, but I’m pretty sure. All right, Pasha,’ he said in a normal voice, then, stroking the child’s back. He was starting to cry. He had never liked the dark. ‘We’re just going for a ride. It’s all right.’

His heart ached. It felt like a knife in his gut, not knowing what might happen to the boys. Locked in the back of a dark, stinking van, t here wasn’t really a way to make the boys think this was normal.

Napoleon’s hand settled over his and rubbed his knuckles.

‘It’ll be all right.’

‘You don’t know that,’ Illya hissed. Then he bit his lip, and took a deep breath. He needed to stay calm for the children. More than that, he needed to not let them see his fear. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said in a different voice. ‘All right, Napoleon. How’s Kolya looking?’

‘It’s dark in here,’ Napoleon reminded him. ‘I can’t see any more than you. Well… Listen, take Kolya, will you?’

He shifted the little boy onto Illya’s lap, and Illya hugged his arms around him and Pasha together. Napoleon began moving about in the van. Illya leant back against the divide between cargo space and cab, and rocked the boys softly, trying not to feel carsick from travelling backwards and the scent of fuel.

‘There are some chinks of light,’ Napoleon explained. ‘I’ll see what I can see.’

‘Anything through to the front?’ Illya asked.

‘No, it’s solid, but I might be able to see out through the back. Might at least be able to see where we’re going.’

Illya sat and waited. He could see something of the light that Napoleon was going after, a vague haze near the back of the van.

‘Anything?’ he asked, once he was impatient of waiting.

‘Hard to tell,’ Napoleon murmured. ‘I think we’re heading back towards the city. I’m only seeing behind us, not where we’re going.’

‘I suppose all we can do, is wait,’ Illya replied.

He held his arms firmly around both children, rocking them gently. He didn’t care what happened to him, but inside was a deep terror for what might happen to the children. He was supposed to protect them from what the world threw at them, but right now, he was powerless.

  


((O))

  


They were torn out of the van with roughness and low, barked orders. They had driven into some kind of enclosed garage, as far as Napoleon could make out through the gap in the door. He had scooted back to Illya’s side as soon as they stopped, and a moment later the doors were opened and they were ordered out. Even if Napoleon hadn’t told Illya it was a garage, it would be obvious as he climbed out into the space, holding Kolya in his arms. The scent of petrol and oil filled the air.

Someone tore Kolya from his arms, and it was obvious that Pasha was being taken from Napoleon, too. The boys had fallen half asleep, and wailed as they were torn away from their parents. Illya reached out after them, but Napoleon grabbed at his arm and made him stop.

‘They all have guns,’ he said in a low, angry voice. ‘Illya, they all have guns. Don’t move.’

The boys screamed as they were carried away. A door slammed across the wide space, muffling the sound a little.

‘Where are you taking them?’ Illya asked, struggling to keep his voice steady.

He had to control his terror for the boys, but it was hard when all he could hear was their screaming. He tried to focus on closer things. There were more men here than the three in the van. He couldn’t tell how many, but they were ringing him and Napoleon.

A fist slammed into his gut and he doubled, choking. A foot kicked his leg, sending him to the floor, and he curled around himself, trying to protect his head with his arms.

‘Fucking filthy faggot,’ a man spat, and the foot kicked him again.

He could hear Napoleon grunting in pain, noises of fists impacting with bone and muscle. He tried to straighten himself out, but he was struggling for breath after that first punch had winded him. Pain was chasing pain through his body, and he was kicked again. Distantly he could still hear the crying of the boys, but the sound was dimmed by walls. Thank god they were in another room. He couldn’t bear to think of them witnessing this.

He heard the clean sound of another punch, and someone hitting the floor, but he didn’t know if it were Napoleon, or if Napoleon had downed someone. His partner had been away from the field for a while, but he had never stopped practising his combat skills. It was hard to decipher all the sounds when he was trying to protect himself from the kicking, when their kidnappers were spitting slurs and insults, when the wailing of the toddlers went on and on in that other room. A boot impacted with his spine, and for a moment everything went white, his ears screaming.

‘That’s enough, I think.’

The words were very quiet, but he heard them clearly through the white static that was fading from his ears.  Walmersley. He was certain it was Walmersley. He was a rising star in Section 3, but Illya had never quite been able to like him. There had been something about him that he couldn’t put his finger on. His qualifications were excellent, and he had never yet let the organisation down, but he had always felt uneasy around him.

The sounds of fighting continued for a moment. They obviously hadn’t downed Napoleon yet. A moment later, though, there was silence. Maybe one of them had pulled a gun.

‘Put them down there,’ Walmersley said.

_ Where? _ Illya wondered. He heard something heavy being moved very close to him, the sound of something metal being dragged across the floor. Then he was pushed, and before he could react he was falling. He landed on concrete after a fall of perhaps five feet, and the wind was knocked out of him all over again.

‘Thank you. I can manage,’ Napoleon said from somewhere above him. It was amazing how suave he could sound in a situation like this.

Napoleon landed beside him lightly and delicately, rather than with the potato-sack thump that Illya had made on falling into the hole. That heavy thing was dragged over above them again, and almost total darkness fell. Illya heard an engine starting up; the van they had been brought here in, he thought. It was being driven over the cover above them. If they had harboured thoughts of trying to push it away, the many tons of vehicle above them would make it impossible. The men above must have thought the same, because Illya heard their footsteps walking away, and a door slamming. Silence settled around them.


	6. Chapter 6

The hole they were in was freezing cold, damp, and stank of fuel. Illya could see nothing at first but darkness. The cold seeped up through the concrete floor into his body, even through his thick coat. For a moment he didn’t want to move. His body hurt too much.

‘Illya.’ Napoleon put a hand on his shoulder, speaking very quietly. It was quite possible there was still someone up there, listening. ‘You all right?’

Illya grunted, starting to sit up. ‘Aside from being used as a piñata, you mean? What about you?’

‘I’m fine. You haven’t answered my question.’

Illya raised a hand, finding Napoleon’s face. He traced his fingertips delicately over his features in the darkness, wincing internally at Napoleon’s audible wince. His lip was swollen, and wet with what Illya assumed was blood. He could feel swelling around his left orbital, too, and more blood on his cheek.

‘Fine?’ he asked. ‘How bad would it be if you _weren’t_ fine?’

Napoleon took hold of his hand and kissed his knuckles softly and silently. ‘What about you, Illya?’

‘I’m as fine as you are,’ Illya replied, although his spine hurt mercilessly, and so did his ribs. ‘I decided I wouldn’t do so well in a fist fight, so I decided to sit it out, but they didn’t seem to want to settle for that.’

‘No,’ Napoleon murmured. He had kept hold of Illya’s hand and was pressing it against his cheek. ‘That was a good selection of insults they pulled out of the bag.’

Illya laughed, but there was something almost like a sob pushing up behind that laugh. ‘I’ve been called faggot before. In fact, I was probably called that more often before I had you, than after. It’s a favourite insult of those types.’

‘Illya, they meant it,’ Napoleon said in a low voice. Was there fear somewhere behind his words? ‘It wasn’t an empty insult this time. They meant it.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Illya replied.

He tried to contain his reaction to that in a little place deep inside him, but it felt like a block of ice that was creeping larger with every moment. Men’s worst abuse was often reserved for people who threatened them sexually, the men they called faggots or queers or gays.

‘That’s not what I’m worried about,’ he said, although he was worried about that. He was deeply worried. ‘It’s the boys, Napoleon. What are they going to do to our boys?’

‘I – ’ Napoleon started to say something, but it sounded as if something had caught in his throat. He coughed, and his hand tightened so hard over Illya’s that it hurt. Illya raised his free hand to Napoleon’s face, gently tracing across his eyes. There were tears there.

‘We’ll get them,’ Illya said in a voice like steel. ‘I promise you, we will get out of here, and we will get them.’

‘Illya, there are three tons of van on top of us,’ Napoleon said. ‘We’re in a filthy car pit with a van parked on top of us. That’s a solid sheet of steel they’ve dropped over the top, and they parked the van right on it.’

‘I know,’ Illya said. ‘I know that, Napoleon. I’m not suggesting we try and push that van off us. But they’re not going to leave us in here. They didn’t take us to let us die in here. They took us because they wanted something from us – from _me_. They’re going to use the boys for persuasion.’

‘They’re going to use me for persuasion, too,’ Napoleon reminded him. ‘You’ll have a lot to stand up to.’

‘I know.’

Illya pressed his lips against the side of Napoleon’s head, making the kiss so soft and quiet that no one above would be able to hear. It felt terrible to have to do that. He was used to hiding the nature of their relationship in public, but this was different. He felt dirty, knowing that any sign of his love for Napoleon would conjure revulsion and violence in the men who had taken them. It was terrible to have something so clean made so filthy.

‘I’m used to them using you as persuasion,’ he said. ‘I’m not used to this. Not – our boys...’

‘We should try to get out of here,’ Napoleon said suddenly, pushing his hand against Illya’s shoulder so he could stand up. Illya winced as he moved, wondering if he had a few cracked ribs. His spine throbbed where he had been kicked, and his cheek was swollen.

‘Through the van?’ Illya asked. ‘Through the metal plate?’

He looked upwards, searching towards the scant light. There must be some holes up there, because there was a little light, but not much.

‘It’s not high enough to stand, is it?’ he asked.

‘It is, just,’ Napoleon told him. ‘A bit below six feet, I’d say. The right height for a man to stand and work overhead. There are a few holes in the metal. It’s rusted in places.’

‘How rusted?’ Illya asked in a hard voice, still looking towards the light.

Napoleon laughed. ‘Not that rusted, Illya. Enough for me to poke my fingers through in places, but it’s pretty solid around.’

‘Can you see anything?’

‘Yeah,’ Napoleon replied. ‘The underneath of that van’s pretty rusted, too. I’m surprised the muffler didn’t fall off on our way here.’

‘Anything else?’ Illya asked, unable to keep impatience from his voice.

‘Not much,’ Napoleon said. He sounded strained, as if his head were in an awkward position. ‘Wrong angle. Just little bits of the floor, the leg of a chair, I think.’

He came back to Illya, moving slowly, sitting down with a grunt. It was obvious he was in pain.

‘How badly hurt are you?’ Illya asked. ‘Really?’

‘I don’t know,’ Napoleon said, and Illya heard honesty in his tone. ‘Really, Illya. I don’t know. The regular cuts and bruises, I think. I didn’t pass out at any point, but I thought you did.’

Illya smiled grimly. ‘Not because of a head injury. They kicked me in the spine. It was just – very painful.’

‘Illya.’ Napoleon touched a hand to his neck and started running his fingers gently down his spine.

‘Oof. Yes, there,’ Illya murmured as the gently pressuring fingers found the bruise. ‘I’d rather you didn’t, to be honest.’

‘If there were a bit more light in here I’d have a look,’ Napoleon said.

‘You couldn’t do anything even if you did look.’

They fell into silence. Distantly, they could hear the wailing of the boys. To Illya, it felt as if his heart were trying to push out of his chest and go to them. The need was physically painful inside him. He held his hand around Napoleon’s and rested his head on his shoulder, and closed his eyes.

It was cold down here, cold with the damp of being in the ground in winter. The scent of fuel and oil nauseated him, and the damp seemed to itch into his lungs. He tried to reassure himself with the thought that at least the boys were up in the light and warmth. He hoped they were in light and warmth.

‘We need to get them,’ he said, almost involuntarily. He hadn’t been meaning to speak.

‘I know,’ Napoleon murmured. ‘I know. All we can do is wait until they haul us out of here, though. There’s no way we can move that sheet of metal.’

Illya didn’t reply. He stayed pressed against Napoleon, sharing his warmth. He was glad they had been dressed for cold weather when they left the house, but sitting still in a place like this meant the warmth seeped out of them. There wasn’t room to get up and walk about.

‘I think the floor slopes,’ Napoleon said after a little while. ‘We’re at the shallow end of the pool. If we’re in here long enough, better use the other end as the public convenience, I think.’

‘We’ll be in here long enough,’ Illya said with grim certainty. ‘I know Walmersley. I know his techniques. Disorientation and dehumanisation are some of his main strategies for interrogation – always carefully within U.N.C.L.E. guidelines, of course, but he’s free of those now, and he always struck me as a sadistic bastard. I wasn’t sure what it was I didn’t like about him, but now I think about it, it was that. That feeling that if he were allowed, he’d go any distance to get answers.’

‘Yeah,’ Napoleon murmured. ‘I know him. At least, I’ve worked with him a couple of times. He’s a cold fish.’

‘They’ll leave us in here until sometime in the small hours,’ Illya said. ‘If we’re hungry and we’ve needed to use the place as a toilet, so much the better. They’ll wait until they think we’re asleep, and then they’ll bring us out. Or they’ll bring me out. We’ll have to be prepared for any number of techniques. Given the way they’ve been talking, that could turn sexual, Napoleon,’ he said seriously.

‘Good luck to them with that,’ Napoleon said grimly, but Illya caught the note of fear in his voice. They would have very little choice in what was going to happen to them over the next hours or days.

‘What will be, will be,’ Illya said fatefully. There was nothing he could do, yet.

Napoleon laughed mirthlessly. ‘Well, I guess we might as well settle in and enjoy our luxury accommodation. I’ve been in worse places.’

They had, both, been in worse places. There were dozens of worse places Illya could call to mind. Those other places, though, hadn’t had the soundtrack of his crying children playing over and over to tear him apart. He was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to withstand that particular torture.

 

((O))

 

The screeching scrape of metal roused him. He was slumped against Napoleon, where they had fallen asleep at the higher end of the pit. The cold had penetrated right into his bones, and everything felt stiff and aching as he moved. He poked a finger at Napoleon, but he was already waking.

He touched his fingers over his watch face. It was three in the morning. He gave a cynical smile.

‘Three a.m.,’ he murmured to Napoleon. ‘Right on time.’

He tried to straighten his back, and hissed at the knife of pain that speared him where he had been kicked. For a moment he was dizzy, and he sat very still until the feeling passed. Napoleon was making similar noises of pain as he stretched himself out.

‘Well, it’s going to be nice to be able to stand up straight, at least,’ Napoleon murmured, putting a steadying hand on Illya as he got to his knees. Light flooded the space as the metal cover was finally pulled away.

‘All right, faggots. Boss wants you to come up,’ someone called from above.

‘They’re putting down a ladder,’ Napoleon told Illya quietly. ‘Here, let me show you.’

Illya touched the ladder, a slim metal thing that was freezing to his already cold hands. He climbed up, and a hand gripped roughly under his arm and hauled him up from the edge.

‘What a fucking joke,’ the man laughed, pushing at him carelessly. ‘This is the head of U.N.C.L.E. New York? A blind fag?’

Illya stayed silent. What point was there in replying and feeding their vitriol? He stood and waited while Napoleon climbed up the ladder, then walked where the hand on his arm pushed him. The blazing light of the garage space softened as they went through a door, and he looked around, trying to discern what might be there. It was all too blurry, though. The patches of light and colour told him very little.

‘Take that coat off,’ his escort told him; ‘Both of you, overcoats and sweaters off, and drop them on the floor.’

Illya did so without comment, peeling off his thick overcoat and then his wool cardigan. There was no point in resisting. It was a little warmer in this room, at least. He thought he could smell gas, and there was the definite hiss of a gas fire. That made him a little nervous, in a room right next to a garage that stank of petrol.

‘Sit down there,’the man said, pushing him backwards into what felt like an ordinary office swivel chair. His arms were roughly bound to the arms, his feet lashed together and tied to the chair’s feet. His back hurt fiercely.

‘My favourite position,’ he murmured sardonically. ‘How I’ve missed this.’

He listened for Napoleon. He thought he was being bound to a chair too, a few feet away from him.

‘All right, Walmersley,’ Napoleon said then, and Illya listened more carefully. He hadn’t known Walmersley was here yet. ‘What about the boys? Where are they?’

‘Oh, you’ll be seeing them soon,’ Walmersley replied softly.

Illya clenched his fists. He wanted to punch the man’s smug face, to punch it and punch it until it was nothing but offal. He felt sick with his worry for the boys.

‘What do you want, Walmersley?’ he asked. ‘You don’t need to involve the children. Take them to any U.N.C.L.E. outpost where they’ll be safe.’

Walmersley gave a barking laugh. ‘What on earth would be the advantage in that, Kuryakin? Don’t be ridiculous. Those children are my way to crack you. I’d be an idiot to give them up.’

Illya hissed out breath. If fury alone could break bonds he would have been across the room by now with his hands round Walmersley’s throat.

‘To think U.N.C.L.E. trained you.’

He laughed again. ‘U.N.C.L.E. trained me, of course. So did Thrush. They’re not as prissy about their methods. You do remember Thrush, don’t you? Back in the days when you used to be a man?’

He strained his arms against the ropes around them, but they didn’t give at all. Tied properly, and without any way to cut them or unpick the knots, ropes were as good as chain. He tried to keep his demeanour calm, though. Walmersley was using all the psychological tools he had to his advantage. That was why Illya was sitting on a chair in the middle of the night, hungry, dry with thirst, and desperately worried about his children. That was why they had beaten him for his sexuality, and wouldn’t leave the subject alone. It was all part of a cold plan to pull him apart.

‘Why don’t you just cut to it?’ Napoleon asked from across the room. ‘What is it that you want?’

‘I want U.N.C.L.E.’s top security codes, of course. I want the names of the top contacts in all main areas. I want to be able to access the U.N.C.L.E. computer system and bring it down from within.’

‘Not much, then,’ Napoleon murmured.

Illya was clenching his hands so hard that his fingernails dug into his palms. He had been through this kind of thing before, with his enemies threatening Napoleon, other agents, or even innocents. But to go through it with his own children was terrible. He had always managed to withstand threats. He had always got out, somehow. He didn’t know what he would do if one of his children were being tortured in front of him.

He wished, briefly, that U.N.C.L.E. went in for cyanide capsules in the teeth. If he thought killing himself would save the boys, he would do that. But even that was no guarantee. They would still have Napoleon. If Napoleon also killed himself, the boys would be left alone, in the hands of Thrush, still precious commodities to barter with.

There was no way out. Unless he could think of a third option, his choice would be to give Thrush what they wanted, or be witness to his children and Napoleon being tortured and killed.

‘I cannot give you any of that information,’ he said.

That would start the ball rolling.

‘Go and get the children,’ Walmersley said calmly.

Illya closed his eyes. He wished he could see Napoleon. He wished something unspoken could pass between them. He felt as though he were on an island, very far from anything that could help him.

He heard the crying before the children were let into the room. They must have been woken from sleep. Then the door opened and the crying was suddenly loud and immediate.

‘You bastards,’ Napoleon hissed.

Every fibre in Illya made him want to ask what it was he had seen. He heard the boys’ footsteps, barefoot, and then one of them was clinging at his knee, crying and calling, ‘Papa, papa up. Papa up.’

He clenched his fists harder. How could he explain any of this to the boys? It was Kolya clinging to him and pulling on his trouser leg. He could see his fair hair. Pasha had gone to Napoleon, he thought. Kolya always came to him first.

He switched into Ukrainian, saying, ‘Papa can’t hold you right now, Kolya. Not right now. I’ll hug you when I can, I promise.’

He didn’t know what he could say. Kolya was almost wordless with sobs, pulling at the fabric of his trousers, trying to get himself up onto Illya’s lap. Then he was abruptly pulled away. There was a slapping noise, and Kolya screamed, and Napoleon swore. Illya pulled so hard at his bonds that it burned his wrists, but it didn’t help.

‘I’ll give you a chance, Kuryakin,’ Walmersley said. ‘That is a taste of what your darling children have in store for them, but tonight I’ll give you a chance. Feliz, give me the syringe.’

Illya hissed. He hated drugs. He sat in the chair listening to movement, listening to the crying of the children, listening to what he thought was Napoleon trying to shake himself free of his chair. Then someone ripped his shirt sleeve to above the elbow, and plunged a needle into his arm. He felt the effect almost immediately, an uncomfortable warmth and a slurring feeling pushing through his body. A truth drug, he assumed; something that would loosen his inhibitions. Whatever it was, it made his emotions feel much closer to the surface. He wanted to stand up and slaughter the men in the room.

He pulled at the bonds again, then jerked the chair up and down, but the pain in his back lanced into his entire body, and his strength was seeping out of him with the effects of the drug.

‘Those things I wanted to know,’ Walmersley asked him.

‘No,’ Illya said, and was disturbed to hear how slurred his voice was. ‘Go to hell.’

He seemed to hear the crack a moment after he felt the impact of a palm slapping with all its strength across his cheek. He heard the plastic tap as his false eye flew from the socket and skittered across the floor.

‘Jesus,’ one of the men said, and another said laughingly, ‘Didn’t you know it was fake?’

Illya tried to close his mind to the sounds of the boys screaming. Kolya was worried for the eye, he knew. Pasha was probably more worried about the slap.

‘Take those brats away for now,’ Walmersley said as an aside. ‘I want to save them for dessert.’

Illya exhaled through thin lips. That gave them some time. They would have a little time. He didn’t know what they could do, how he could get out of this terrible situation, but it gave them some time.

The crying grew quieter as the boys were taken away. Illya wished there could be someone to hug them and soothe them into sleep, but he was afraid it would be left for the boys to soothe each other. He wanted to sob, and the drug was making him feel so close to sobbing, but he fought against it.

‘All right, Kuryakin. Those codes,’ Walmersley asked him again, kicking his ankle hard.

‘Go – to – hell,’ Illya said again through gritted teeth.

‘How about your dear lover, then?’ Walmersley said, moving away from him and towards Napoleon. There was the thud of a fist meeting flesh, and Napoleon grunted. ‘How would you like me to work him over a little?’

‘Go to hell,’ Illya repeated.

It felt hard to think of any other words. He felt so full of the drug in his veins. He felt awful, as if he needed to slide from the chair and lie on the floor and empty his guts there.

There was that sound of punching again, and Napoleon gave a choked in sob. Illya closed his eyes. Napoleon knew he couldn’t tell them anything. They had both always known that.


	7. Chapter 7

It was hours later when they loosed his arms from the chair, but he hadn’t told them anything. He felt dizzy, ready to fall over, his skin tight and throbbing with swollen bruises. This time it had all been punches and kicks and slaps, to him and to Napoleon, but there had been mentions of  _ next time _ . Mentions of soldering irons and other workshop tools. Higher levels of drugs. Bringing in the boys.

They would build it up, Illya knew. They would see how far they needed to take it. They would leave him now to think about what was to come. They would let the dread build.

He stood up when they told him to, but his knees gave way, and he pitched forward onto the floor, retching. Maybe that was some of the drug leaving his system. He hoped so. He couldn’t bear the feeling of being drugged.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ one of the men said, and someone kicked him, muttering about making him clean up the mess.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Put them back in the pit,’ Walmersley said in a disinterested voice. ‘Give them some time to think about things. We could all do with some sleep.’

Illya tried to stand, then Napoleon said, ‘Let me help him.’

Napoleon’s hands felt so warm and kind. He wanted to fall into his arms, but he just stood, wavering, letting Napoleon hold him. He couldn’t imagine that he felt much better. He hadn’t been drugged, but he had been physically assaulted just as Illya had, and maybe more. The sound of the punching had been sickening.

‘Okay, Illya,’ Napoleon said quietly. ‘Lean on me.’

There was something in his voice. He had learnt over the years to interpret every nuance of Napoleon’s voice. Often their lives depended on it. So he leant on Napoleon with more weight than he needed to, leaning closer.

‘On my mark,’ Napoleon murmured to him, right into his ear.

He walked with Napoleon through the door, and just as they passed through Napoleon told him, ‘Fall left.’

Illya pitched left without question, just letting himself fall. His hip hit something hard, and then he slammed onto the floor. Napoleon was by his side in an instant, pushing a hand under him. He could feel something in that hand, could feel that Napoleon was trying to push something into his waistband, so he acted as if he were struggling but failing to get up, lifting up just enough to give Napoleon room to work. Something hard and cold was slipped into the waistband of his trousers, then Napoleon poked him hard.

He pushed against the floor again, pushing himself up. Napoleon’s arm stayed around him, pressing against that cold hardness in his waistband as he guided him across the floor.

‘All right, Illya,’ he said. ‘The ladder’s just in front of you. Got it?’

He wanted to crouch to feel, but that would make whatever the stiff thing was obvious to the men watching. Instead, he turned around and kicked about with one foot until he found the ladder. He climbed down, feeling oddly grateful to be going back to that foetid space. At least there was no one hitting him there. But it was even colder down there than it was in the garage space. His breath was probably clouding in the air. He missed his warm overcoat and cardigan. 

He stood back from the ladder at the bottom, waiting for Napoleon, feeling as if he wanted to slump against the wall, but refusing to show such weakness in front of their captors. As soon as the metal plate had been pulled back across the hole, though, he reached out a hand, and Napoleon caught it. His lover leant in, cupping his hand against the back of Illya’s head, and kissed him silently on the lips.

‘I’m sorry,’ Napoleon whispered, his lips moving against Illya’s as he spoke.

Illya looped his arms around Napoleon’s waist and stood for a moment, just hugging him. He felt exhausted, nauseous and shaky. Napoleon’s arms enveloped him, and Illya hissed as his hands pressed on that bruise on his spine.

‘Sorry,’ Napoleon murmured, and he moved his hands up a little.

Illya tightened his arms around Napoleon, just leaning against him. He was so tired, so hungry, and so many parts of him hurt from being hit and kicked. He wanted to slump down and sleep. Up above them he could hear voices, and then the engine of the van being started up and manoeuvred back over the pit to hold down the metal sheet.

‘What had they done to the boys?’ Illya asked, using the cover of the noise of the van. His eyes were closed, his cheek against the warmth of Napoleon’s cheek.

Napoleon hesitated for a moment, then he said, ‘I think they’d slapped them both pretty hard.’

‘Anything else?’ Illya asked. He wished Napoleon could describe every inch of them.

‘Their diapers looked like they needed changing badly. They were scared. Pasha had some bruising around his lower right arm. They both looked like they’d been slapped.’

Nausea rose up in him, and he fought against it. He didn’t know if it were the drug or his empathy for the children. Maybe it was both. He felt their terror as if it were his own. But he could rationalise what was happening. The boys wouldn’t be able to understand what was happening and why their parents weren’t helping them. He felt terrified for Kolya, who hated uncertainty. He felt terrified thinking about what might happen to them next time. Walmersley had spoken about soldering irons… How could he hold out through that?

‘Hey,’ Napoleon said softly, kissing the side of his head. ‘We’ll make it all right. I promise.’

Illya reached back to touch the thing Napoleon had slipped under his shirt, but he could feel that it was wrapped in paper, and he didn’t want it to rustle if anyone up there were listening. He could still hear occasional voices, but then there were footsteps moving away, and the sound of a door opening and closing.

‘Are we alone?’ he asked Napoleon. ‘Can you see?’

Napoleon let go of him and stepped away.

‘Not well enough,’ he murmured after a moment. ‘You can probably tell better than me by listening.’

‘I can’t hear anyone,’ Illya said. ‘It’s no guarantee, but I can’t hear anyone. Maybe they’ve gone to get some sleep.’

‘Yeah, it’s about five a.m.,’ Napoleon said. ‘Sleep seems good, doesn’t it? I wish we had time for sleep, but we’ve got work to do.’

Illya slipped the packet out of his waistband and ran his fingers over it. It was something hard, metal, he thought, many little things that were long and slim and packaged together in paper.

‘What is it?’ he murmured.

Napoleon brought his mouth right up against Illya’s ear, so his breath was warm against him, and whispered, ‘Hacksaw blades.’

Illya didn’t reply, but he felt hope and joy leap inside him. He touched his hand to the metal plate above them, feeling over it until he found one of those rusted holes. It was thick, but not impossibly thick. There was a possibility that they might be able to cut a hole.

‘We’ll need to wrap something around the end of the blades, or we’ll cut our hands to shreds,’ he murmured.

‘We’re both wearing ties,’ Napoleon reminded him. ‘We can start out using them.’

‘Give them ten minutes to be sure we’re alone, then we start sawing,’ Illya said. ‘Look for the weak spots. Look for the best place to make the cuts count. If you can find two holes in the right place we can each take a side.’

‘Okay,’ Napoleon murmured. He left a soft kiss on Illya’s forehead. ‘Sit for a bit,’ he said. ‘I’ll look over this plate. You tell me when it’s time to start cutting.’

Illya sat gratefully, the packet of blades still in his hands. He felt so tired, and he was sure Napoleon couldn’t feel any better. He leant against the damp wall, and his bruised spine protested, but he stayed leaning because he was just so tired. It was cold enough in here, deprived of their winter coats, that he was shivering hard. Sawing would keep them warm, perhaps. At least it would give them purpose.

He kept touching his fingers to his watch, and listening to the sounds up above. There was almost nothing to hear. Every now and then he heard what he thought was one of the boys crying, but it sounded far away. Sometimes there were traffic sounds from outside. But there were none of those little sounds of a guard – no shifting foot to foot, no coughs, no flick of a cigarette lighter or scrape of a match, and no scent of cigarette smoke.

‘I’m sure we’re alone,’ he said at last, ‘and it’s been ten minutes. A guard will usually make some noise in that time.’

‘Okay,’ Napoleon said. He crouched down to Illya’s level. ‘I’ve been all over that plate. There are places where it’s just thinner in general, and a few holes big enough to push the blades through.’

Illya was unknotting his tie and pulling it off. Then he turned his attention to the paper packet in his lap, tearing open one end and slipping out a slim blade. He touched his fingers to the teeth. It was good and sharp.

‘Shame you couldn’t have got a saw, too,’ he said, and Napoleon laughed.

‘I’ll put it on my shopping list for next time. But it wouldn’t help here. The frame wouldn’t be able to follow the blade through the cut.’

‘No, I suppose not,’ Illya murmured. He passed a blade to Napoleon, then started to wrap his broad tie around his hand. It would be good enough, he thought. He stood up and shoved the long packet back in his waistband, at the front this time. ‘Show me where to cut,’ he said.

Napoleon took his hand and guided it to a place in the steel cover where he could feel a ragged, thin-edged hole big enough to poke two fingers through.

‘There,’ he said, taking Illya’s hand and positioning it and the blade. ‘Work in that direction. I’m going to work towards it on a right angle from another hole. We’ll meet at the corner, then we can start working the other way. It won’t be a big hole, but it’ll be enough to get through.’

‘You know, we’ll need to have it all done before anyone comes back,’ Illya said seriously. ‘They’ll see the cuts as soon as they drive the van away.’

‘I know,’ Napoleon said. ‘So we’re going to work as fast as we can.’

‘I’m glad I keep up my gym practice,’ Illya said.

He worked as hard on his arm strength as on the rest of his body, swinging from the monkey bars, using the parallel bars to strengthen arms and trunk. Gym practice always gave him a feeling of grace and control and utter focus on his own body.

He positioned the blade and started to cut. The sound was terrible, and made his heart falter. Surely it would be heard? Surely someone would be awake, and hear? When Napoleon started up the noise rang in his ears in the small space. But perhaps the rest of the men were far enough away. Perhaps to whoever was with the boys the sound was drowned out by their crying. That was supposing anyone was with the boys, of course. Perhaps they had just been locked in and left alone.

He sawed harder. It was hard to keep the blade upright and to move it far enough, without the supporting frame of a saw to hold it, but it was slowly biting through the metal. Thank god for rust, he thought. He could smell it all around him, like warm blood. It was flaking off and scattering onto his face, so he sawed with his eyes closed. Every now and then he paused and touched his fingers to the cut, checking he was still going straight and seeing how far he had gone.

‘You doing all right?’ he asked Napoleon.

‘Yeah,’ Napoleon said breathlessly. The sawing noise didn’t stop.

‘Good,’ Illya replied, and he kept on sawing, pushing the blade forward as hard as he could.

  


((O))

  


He felt as if he had been working for hours. It hadn’t been that long, he knew, but he wasn’t stopping to check his watch, so the only measure of time was the up and down stroke of the blade. He had worn out two already.

‘How many are there in the packet?’ he asked Napoleon.

‘Uh, ten, I think,’ Napoleon said, without stopping sawing.

‘How far have you got? You’re close to me, aren’t you?’

He could feel the vibration through the plate every time Napoleon sawed, getting stronger and stronger. They were standing so close that their shoulders jostled.

‘Close,’ Napoleon said. ‘We should meet soon.’

Illya took a moment to turn his head and catch Napoleon’s cheek with a kiss, but he didn’t stop sawing. He felt a new determination, knowing how close they were, and he kept pressing on. 

‘All right,’ Napoleon said abruptly, putting a hand on his shoulder. ‘Illya, you’ve gotten far enough. I’ll meet your cut in a moment.’

‘Show me where to start on the other side,’ Illya said immediately.

Napoleon sighed. Illya knew he was caught between stopping to show Illya so he could carry on, and carrying on himself. Illya traced his own cut back to the beginning, finding that ragged rust hole.

‘Give me a moment,’ Napoleon said. ‘Get that tie properly around your hand again.’

He wanted to keep cutting, but he knew the tie needed rearranging. His hand stung with blisters. He lowered his aching arms and leant against the wall, the cold rushing in and making his sweat-wet back shiver. He carefully unwrapped the tie and began to re-wrap, hissing at the stinging pain.

‘Y’okay?’ Napoleon asked.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Sore.’

There was a little change in the sawing sound, and then it stopped.

‘Done,’ Napoleon said in a tone of deep satisfaction. ‘Okay, are you ready?’

Now he had stopped for a moment his arms were trembling, and the cold was pressing all around him. He almost felt as if he wouldn’t be able to steady his hands enough to saw.

‘I’m ready,’ he said.

Napoleon took his hand and showed him the hole again.

‘In that direction,’ he said, positioning him. ‘We might not need to go all the way. We might be able to bend it down.’

The hacksaw blade clattered against the metal. His arms wouldn’t stop shaking.

‘You sure you can do this?’ Napoleon asked, his hand still over Illya’s. ‘Maybe we can take a break.’

‘We can’t take a break,’ Illya said. ‘We don’t know when they might come back. We only have one chance. And you’re shaking as much as I am.’

He felt impatient for Napoleon to let go of his hand. He needed to be sawing.

‘Okay,’ Napoleon said, understanding him wordlessly. He kissed him, then said, ‘Saw. Go on. I’ll meet you at the corner again.’

He focussed, trying to let the force of his attempts to saw steady away the shaking. It didn’t work straight away, but gradually control came back, and he sawed, up and down, up and down, his hand stinging and aching, his arm aching. His only thought was the boys; of their terror and the way they had been treated. They needed to do this in one go. They needed to get out and get the boys and get away.

By the time they had almost reached the corner again he felt utterly exhausted, but it was as if there were a fire inside him, keeping him going. He had to carry on so they could find their boys.

‘Hey,’ Napoleon said at last, touching his arm. ‘We might be able to pull it down. Give me a hand, won’t you?’

Illya dropped his arms, shaking, at his side. He pushed the hacksaw blade into his pocket. The air around him was full of the scent of rust and hot metal, mixing with urine and damp and oil. He could feel grit in his nose and mouth. Everything was covered with a fine dust of rusty steel.

‘Where do I pull?’ he asked.

Napoleon guided his hand. The metal had some flex in it, but the gap wasn’t quite wide enough to fit his fingers through. He pressed his crooked fingers into the rust hole where he had started cutting, and pulled.

‘Can you get your hands in?’ he asked.

‘Not – not quite,’ Napoleon said. ‘Here, let’s swap. I’ll try pulling down there and you see if you can get into the gap.’

‘My hands are bigger than yours,’ Illya reminded him.

‘I know, bear paws, but I’m heavier,’ Napoleon said, and Illya gave a little snort of laughter.

‘You always feel just fine to me,’ he said, but he moved his fingers along the cut edge of the metal and waited for Napoleon to pull.

The gap edged wider, and he pushed at it.

‘A bit more,’ he said.

Napoleon pulled again, and he pushed his fingers harder. They slipped in, then the metal suddenly sprang back as Napoleon lost his grip.

Illya hissed as the metal crushed his fingers. They were trapped by the rough edge, and he couldn’t pull them out.

‘Sorry,’ Napoleon said. ‘Sorry.’

He heaved again, and the pressure released a little. Illya managed to push more of his hands through, his crushed fingers throbbing. He got a grip on the edge, then lifted his feet off the floor, and hung. The light around them suddenly increased as the metal gave a little more. 

‘Keep hold, Illya,’ Napoleon told him, so Illya kept hanging, until Napoleon had moved his hands around to grip at the same edge, and was pulling down. The metal groaned as the sawn edges ground together, then suddenly the whole flap bent down so fast that Illya lost his grip and tumbled onto the floor. His back seared and lights flashed in his vision.

‘Okay,’ Napoleon said, panting. ‘Hey, are you okay?’

‘I’m okay,’ he murmured. ‘Just my back. Give me a moment.’

He took in a few deep breaths, steadying himself. Then he took Napoleon’s offered hand, and painfully got to his feet. His back hurt so much he felt sick.

‘Yeah, watch yourself on that edge now,’ Napoleon said, shielding his face with his hand. ‘You’ll slash your face open.’

‘I’m all right,’ Illya assured him, feeling the broad piece of bent metal. ‘I know where it is now.’

‘Illya, I think you should stay here while I go up,’ Napoleon said seriously. ‘I need to scout around.’

‘And I’m a liability?’ Illya asked. ‘Napoleon, you know me better than that.’

‘Illya, I know you better than anyone in the world,’ Napoleon assured him. ‘I also know there are men up there with guns.’

‘I am coming,’ Illya said. ‘This is not a debate.’

Napoleon sighed. ‘I’ll boost you up, then you can pull me up. Watch your head on the van. It’s pretty low overhead.’

‘Thank you, Napoleon,’ Illya said.

He ran his hands around the hole he would be climbing through, then clambered onto Napoleon’s back when he crouched down. It wasn’t hard to pull himself through the hole, and he could feel the closeness of the van as he slithered into the low space. He turned himself around, shuffling flat on the metal plate, then reached down for Napoleon.

Napoleon’s hands caught into his, and he adjusted his grip so they were each holding the other’s wrists. His arms ached and his fingers screamed as he helped to haul him up, but he managed to pull him up through the hole. Then they were both there, lying under the van, panting. All they had to do now, was take on a building full of Thrush men, and get their boys out of there...


	8. Chapter 8

Illya turned his head sideways, trying to see what was out there in the garage space. The lights must have been left on, because it was bright, and he could hear the hum of fluorescent bulbs. He couldn’t see anything moving.

‘It’s clear,’ Napoleon murmured. ‘Safe to come out.’

Illya could have told him as much. If there had been anyone there they wouldn’t have been allowed to keep sawing.

‘You go out first,’ he said, touching his hand to Napoleon’s arm.

Napoleon wriggled out from under the van, then whispered for Illya to follow.

‘Okay. Keep your head down for a moment,’ Napoleon said, laying his hand on the back of Illya’s head. ‘Good. You’re clear. You can stand up.’

He clambered to his feet, relieved to finally be standing in a clear, open space where the feelings of the walls and ceiling were high and far away. He turned his head, seeing where the lights were, high above them.

‘Anything for weapons?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, a couple of things. Come with me.’

Illya touched his arm, and walked softly with him across the large space.

‘Here,’ Napoleon said, putting a length of wire into his hands. ‘Garrotting’s your thing, isn’t it?’

Illya smiled grimly, wrapping one end of the wire around his hand. ‘I’d be happy to take it up again. What do you have?’

‘Tyre iron,’ Napoleon told him. ‘It should make an impact, and I can throw it if necessary. Listen, just stay close to me, won’t you?’

‘Of course I’ll stay close to you,’ Illya said impatiently. ‘You’re guiding me. Now, it’s the door over there, they went through,’ he said, nodding in the direction he had heard the men leave the room.

‘Yeah, that’s where we went through before,’ Napoleon nodded. ‘It looks quiet.’

They walked together to the door, and Napoleon tried the handle. It was unlocked, and there was a light on in the space behind. Their captors must have been confident that they wouldn’t get out of the pit, which boded well for security precautions in the rest of the building.

‘I can’t hear the boys,’ Napoleon murmured.

‘No. Maybe they’re sleeping. I think they’re upstairs. They sounded as if they were upstairs.’

‘Then we’ll go upstairs,’ Napoleon said. ‘The stairs are right here.’

The stairwell was cold and narrow, and Illya walked up it trailing his free hand on the wall. The paint was flaking, and damp with condensation. It felt like an old place that they were in, a typical run down city garage, almost as cold inside as it must have been outside.

‘Room to the right,’ Napoleon murmured. ‘I’ll take a look.’

‘Okay,’ Illya said.

He stood with his back to the wall, listening, while Napoleon went in. Somewhere he could hear snoring, but not in the room Napoleon had gone into. There was a sudden, quick sound from in there – the unmistakable sound of a tyre iron impacting with someone’s skull. Then a noise of surprise, a grunt, the smack of a clenched fist hitting bone. Illya stayed still and waited as Napoleon moved about in there. He seemed to have everything under control.

‘Two,’ Napoleon said when he came out of the room. ‘One of them is singing with the choir invisible. The other’s out cold. I tied him up.’

Privately, Illya wondered why Napoleon hadn’t just killed them both, but he knew why. Cold killing wasn’t the way they worked. It never had been.

‘There’s another room down there,’ he nodded down the corridor. ‘Someone’s snoring.’

‘Well, it’s hard work torturing children,’ Napoleon said grimly.

A noise began then, the unmistakable cry of one of the boys. He sounded as if he had just woken up. He sounded afraid. Illya started to move towards the sound, but Napoleon caught at his arm and hissed, ‘Wait. If someone comes we’ll never get them out.’

The wailing went on and on, and Illya held himself rigid, wanting desperately to go to the boys but knowing he had to wait. Napoleon’s hand stayed clenched on his arm. He could feel that Napoleon was just as desperate as he was, but, just as he felt ready to break, there was movement in another room.

Napoleon jerked Illya backwards into the room he had just been in, and pushed the door to. There was a strong smell of blood in the air.

A key turned in a lock down the corridor, a door opened, then there was the sound of Walmersley’s voice, angry and impatient. There was a slapping noise, and the wailing increased to screaming.

Every muscle in his body tightened.

‘Napoleon,’ he said in a low voice.

‘All right,’ Napoleon said.

Illya didn’t wait for Napoleon’s help. He pushed out of the room in front of him and strode down the corridor straight to the sound of crying. He could tell easily where the open door was. He stepped into the room twisting the other end of that wire around his other hand.

Walmersley was right there in front of him. He could see the bulk of him against the light in the room. Probably he was turned away, facing the screaming children. Illya didn’t hesitate. He didn’t know if Walmersley had a gun. He didn’t have a choice but to act. He lashed the wire forward, over the man’s head, and pulled backwards, tightening it around his neck.

‘Get the boys out,’ Illya snapped as Napoleon joined him. Walmersley was flailing and struggling, and he needed to get this job done. ‘ _ Quickly _ .’

He didn’t want the boys to see this. Napoleon went quickly to the children, talking softly to them as he carried them out of the room. Then Illya put real force through the wire. Walmersley’s hands flew to his throat, but Illya pulled tighter and tighter. He had garrotted a man before, but until now he had never felt such satisfaction in that terrible sound of the life leaving a person.

At last, Walmersley slumped, hanging from the wire that was twisted around Illya’s hands. Suddenly everything hurt. Everything ached. His hands were in agony. He let Walmersley fall to the floor, and touched fingers to where the pulse should be in his neck. There was nothing.

He knelt there, panting. Then he ran his hands swiftly over Walmersley’s body, trying to see if he had a gun. There was a bulge in his pocket, and he pulled out what was unmistakably an U.N.C.L.E. issue weapon, fitted with a silencer.

He stood, turning his back on the dead man. He had the urge to kick and kick his dead body, unleashing all of his fury, but he needed to repress that anger and focus on what was necessary. He could hear the boys and Napoleon outside, so he went to the door and held out the gun.

‘Napoleon, have this,’ he said. ‘Let me take the boys. You get Walmersley out of that room and I’ll take them back inside while you clear the rest of the building.’

‘Okay,’ Napoleon said quickly. He was crouching down, and Illya crouched too, opening his arms.

‘Pasha, Kolya, come here,’ he said. ‘Let papa hug you. Come on.’

Pasha ran straight to him, and he cradled him against his chest, feeling the jerking of his back as he cried.

‘Okay, Kolya,’ Napoleon said. ‘Let go of daddy and go to papa now. I’ve got some work to do, okay? Papa will look after you.’

After a moment Napoleon lifted Kolya and passed him into Illya’s arms. He folded both boys against his chest and stood up, holding them, trying to keep their faces turned away as Napoleon dragged Walmersley’s dead body out of the room. Then he took the boys back inside.

He didn’t like this room. The light was dim and the space smelt of human waste. Perhaps that was just the boys’ nappies, which he didn’t think had been changed since they had been taken. The whole room smelt foetid and stale, and it was cold. But it was a safe place to wait, if anywhere in this building was safe.

‘All right,’ he said, jogging the boys up and down against him. ‘Hey, it’s all right, little ones.’

He bumped the door closed behind him and switched into Ukrainian, because it always seemed to help. It was as if they thought it was their own private language.

‘All right, babies,’ he told them. ‘It’s all right, Kolenka, Pashenka. Papa’s here now.’

Perhaps there was a bed in the room, but he didn’t know. There was something in here, some furnishings absorbing the echoes that an empty room would make, but it didn’t seem likely that this garage would be full of furnished bedrooms. They had probably just set up camp beds in empty rooms, and why would they bother to do that for the boys? Maybe there were some blankets or a cardboard box. He both didn’t want to know, and desperately wanted to know.

He sat right down on the floor with them, rocking them against him. He wanted to ask them if they were hurt, to show him where they were hurt, but they were crying so hard that he knew he wouldn’t get words from them. He just hugged them hard against his chest and felt ready to explode with the strength of his love for them.

Rooms away, he heard the soft spit of the silenced gun, and then he heard it again. Napoleon, he hoped, not someone from the other side. He didn’t know what he would do if Napoleon was somehow overpowered. He couldn’t bear to think of it.

At last he started to hear words from Pasha. ‘Bad man, papa. My hurt. Kolya hurt.’

‘Daddy’s making the bad men go away,’ Illya promised them. ‘All the bad men are going away now.’

‘Papa hurt,’ Pasha said, and his little hand touched Illya’s bruised face, and then his hand, where his fingers had been crushed by the steel. The boy pulled his hand up and kissed it, and said, ‘Better.’

‘It’s much better now,’ Illya promised. ‘Thank you, Pasha. Is Pasha hurt?’

Before Pasha could answer, Kolya suddenly wailed, ‘Papa eye. Eye gone. Papa eye gone.’

Illya hugged him closer and kissed the top of his head. ‘I know, Kolya,’ he said. ‘It’s all right. You don’t need to worry about that. I’ll get a new eye.’

The boy carried on crying, and Pasha seemed to pick up his panic and start crying anew. Illya hugged them. He wished he could change their nappies and give them clean clothes and warm milk, and settle them into safe beds. He wanted to be able to do something for them other than holding them and rocking them. But it was the holding that they needed, he knew. That was the biggest thing that they needed.

‘Illya, it’s me,’ Napoleon said from the other side of the door, then he opened it and came in. ‘I’ve cleared the whole building,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a body count of six, plus that one who’s unconscious, and one guy with an arm wound. I’ve got him trussed up. I found a phone and I’ve called an ambulance and the police.’

‘Where are we?’ Illya asked. ‘Did you find out where we are?’

Napoleon laughed. ‘We’re in Albany. Not sure exactly where, but the address is Albany. I found it on their invoices.’

‘There’s an U.N.C.L.E. office here,’ Illya said. ‘A small one.’

‘We’re going to the hospital first,’ Napoleon told him firmly. ‘All of us. I want these two checked out, and I want you checked out too.’

‘Oh, and I suppose they didn’t touch you?’ Illya asked him, arching an eyebrow.

‘I’ll get checked out as well,’ Napoleon promised. ‘All of us. We just need to wait for the ambulance to arrive. Then we need to remember that you’re the papa and I’m the generous friend who lives with you all.’

‘That the boys call  _ daddy _ , yes,’ Illya said wryly.

‘We’ve explained that before,’ Napoleon said, kissing the top of his head. ‘It’s easier for the boys, they just started doing that, blah blah blah. It’ll be all right.’

‘I know,’ Illya said. He felt so tired, and sometimes their family situation seemed so precarious. It was so hard to always be dissembling in public. He wished they could go to the hospital as a family, as two loving parents who just wanted their boys to stop hurting.

‘We’ll be fine,’ Napoleon promised him. ‘Waverly got through in this business with children. We will too.’

‘Of course we will,’ Illya said. But Waverly had had a wife at home who looked after his children. Waverly had had a textbook family life. It wasn’t like his and Napoleon’s.

  


((O))

  


He felt dizzy with exhaustion as he lay on a bed in the hospital, while a nurse carefully disinfected and dressed the injuries to his hands. He just wanted to get out of this place and go home, to take the boys home so they could sleep in their own cots, and be safe. But they were talking about x-rays for his spine and his hands and ribs, and the boys had been taken away again; this time by nurses, rather than traitorous U.N.C.L.E. men, but he needed them with him. He felt as if he could hear their crying. He was sure they would be too far away for him to hear them, because they were up on the children’s ward, but their cries echoed in his ears like the sounds of ghosts.

Someone came past the curtain, and he looked up quickly.

‘Illya,’ Napoleon said, and he relaxed just a little.

‘How are the boys?’ he asked instantly.

‘Illya, I’ve only just been allowed away from the tender care of the most beautiful nurse you have ever seen,’ Napoleon said gently.

Illya would normally smile at Napoleon’s consummate act of being fascinated by beautiful women. He was so good at that, flirting and ogling so well that no one would guess at his relationship with Illya. But today he didn’t feel like smiling. He was exhausted and worried and in pain, in a strange place without his cane, unable to just get up and go and find his boys. He felt trapped.

‘You’re going up there now?’ he asked.

‘I just wanted to check on you, first. How’s he doing, miss?’ he asked the nurse. ‘Will you be letting him go soon?’

‘He’s waiting on some x-rays, I’m afraid,’ the nurse told him, pausing for a moment with Illya’s hand resting on hers. ‘Spine, ribs, and I think he might have broken a finger.’

‘Ah, I think the finger was my fault,’ Napoleon said ruefully. ‘I’m sorry, Illya.’

‘We did what we needed to to get out,’ Illya said brusquely. ‘Napoleon, why don’t you go check on the boys?’

‘I’m all right, by the way. Thanks for asking,’ Napoleon replied. ‘Just cuts and bruises, in the main.’

‘In the main?’ Illya asked, suddenly suspicious.

‘Ah, well, technically I’m waiting on an x-ray myself. They think I might have cracked a bone in my forearm. Or, it might have been cracked for me.’

‘Oh,’ Illya said. ‘I’m sorry.’

He knew he was focussing on the boys to the exclusion of everything else, but he was so worried about them. He hated to have them away from both him and Napoleon. They seemed so vulnerable, after what had happened, even though one of the police officers who had come in with them had pledged to stay until an U.N.C.L.E. man could take his place.

‘I’ll go up and see them now,’ Napoleon promised. ‘And someone from the Albany office should be here any minute. They’ll be all right.  They’re being protected. ’

‘I know,’ Illya said, but a man from the Albany office couldn’t give the boys what they needed. They needed the reassurance of their parents. ‘Have someone send a message down, won’t you? I want to know their condition.’

‘I will,’ Napoleon promised. ‘You’ll be up to see them as soon as it’s safe, you know. They won’t want you wandering around with a possible spinal fracture, and neither do I. You need to stay put.’

‘I know,’ Illya said.

Napoleon put a warm hand on his shoulder. ‘I’ll go now,’ he promised. ‘I’ll send a message down.’

Illya rested back on the bed as Napoleon left. It was good to have the firmness of that mattress under his sore and aching back. If it hadn’t been for his worry about the boys he could have fallen asleep. He felt tired enough to fall apart, and Napoleon must be in a similar state. He should have been more compassionate with Napoleon, he knew, but he was so worried about the boys.

‘Other hand, now, Mr Kuryakin,’ the nurse told him brightly. ‘Just some cleaning to do. No stitches. I should think they’ll call you for your x-rays in a minute.’

‘Thank you,’ he murmured.

She touched a hand to his shoulder. ‘I know, you’re eating yourself up with worry,’ she said. ‘I’ve got two little ones at home. I know what it’s like.’

‘Yes,’ he said. He really didn’t feel like conversation.

‘Listen, I’ll call up to the ward,’ she said suddenly. ‘That way you don’t have to wait for Mr Solo to persuade someone to call down. Would you like that?’

He almost sat up, but the sharp pain in his back made him slump back down again. He was on painkillers, but they didn’t help that much.

‘Yes, please,’ he said quickly. ‘Yes, I would be very grateful.’

‘All right,’ she told him. ‘I’ll be back in a moment.’

He lay there, eyes closed. He lifted a hand and lightly touched his eyelid over the missing eye. He would need to get that sorted as soon as possible. It always worried Kolya terribly if he didn’t have his eye in.

His fingers throbbed, and he laid his hand down again. The antiseptic had felt good in the cuts, but the throbbing and swelling hadn’t eased off. It always worried him to have injuries to his hands. He needed them for so much.

The curtain rattled on its rail, and the nurse was back.

‘Well, I spoke to the ward sister,’ she said brightly. ‘Both boys have been looked over by a doctor now. They’ve both suffered some bruising and they were very dirty and hungry. They’re in clean diapers and clothes now, and they’ve both eaten and drunk. They have no signs of head injuries, but they’re being kept under observation to be sure. I’m afraid little Pavel has a greenstick fracture to his right forearm, but he’s in a cast now, and these things heal more quickly in small children. He’ll be all right.’

Those words  _ I’m afraid _ struck Illya like a blow, the moment lasting for an eternity in his mind before he parsed the rest of the sentence. Then his mind made sense of it. Greenstick fracture. Napoleon had mentioned bruising on Pasha’s arm. The thought of it unleashed itself through him like a sudden torrent. How much pain he must have been in. He had had no idea. How could he have no idea, when he had been holding him and comforting him since they found them in that room? Nausea welled in him, and suddenly, incredibly, he was crying.

‘I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,’ he said through the tears, hot with embarrassment at his sudden collapse.

‘No, it’s all right, Mr Kuryakin,’ the nurse assured him. She touched a tissue to his hand. ‘Here’s a tissue. It’s all right. I understand. We love our little ones more than our lives, don’t we? It must be very shocking for you.’

He had been through so much in his life. He had been through so many experiences that could have provoked these tears. But it felt terrible that Pasha had been in such pain, and he hadn’t known. Everything was billowing  through him like a mushroom cloud. The boys could have been killed. They could so easily have been killed.

‘It’s all right,’ the nurse said again, as he struggled for control. ‘No, it’s okay. You cry it out. They’re your boys. You’re allowed to be upset.’

He pressed the tissue to his face, wiping away the tears and then blowing his nose. She gave him another tissue and took away the first.

‘I need to be up there,’ he said.

‘Mr Solo is up there now,’ she reminded him. ‘You need to stay here and let us look after you. Besides, they’re both sleeping, she said. They’re exhausted. They had a good drink of milk, and they went off beautifully.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Okay.’

He needed to control himself, but he was shaking. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

‘I will bring you a drink,’ the nurse told him. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee? Tea? We’ll get you off for these x-rays as soon as possible, then you can have a sleep yourself. You look exhausted.’

‘I am exhausted,’ he murmured. Then he said, ‘Oh. Tea, please. Yes, I would love a cup of tea. Thank you.’

‘Okay,’ she said, and she went to the curtain and called round it to someone. Then she came back and said, ‘Other hand, now. They won’t like it if I send you up to x-ray covered in blood.’

‘Thank you,’ he said, giving her his other hand.

He closed his eyes and rested back on the pillow, letting her carefully clean the cuts and blisters, letting himself drift away. He lay just listening to all of the sounds that came through the curtain, the nurse’s quiet chatter, the footfalls and machine noises and other people talking. Everything became a haze, far distant, and he lay there thinking of the boys and Napoleon, of how much he needed for them to all be back together, back at home, healing.  The fracture might heal quickly, but i t would take a long time, he thought, for the boys to  really heal from this.


	9. Chapter 9

The car engine droned, the vibration all around him, running through his body. Napoleon was in the front seat, Mark Slate driving. Illya chose to sit in the back with the boys on either side of him, strapped into car seats to keep them safe. He felt as if he never wanted to be out of arm’s reach of them again. They were sleeping now, and he was glad of that. When they were awake they wanted to be held, and he couldn’t hold them while they were in their seats. He kept drifting in and out of sleep himself. He was so tired he couldn’t help it.

‘Crazy,’ Mark was saying. ‘It’s been a crazy few days.’

He remembered the feeling of that wire wrapped around his hands, and Walmersley’s body going suddenly limp and heavy, slumping from the wire that had taken his life. He had never had so much satisfaction in killing a man. It worried him to feel so glad at taking a life. He had never taken pleasure in killing. Sometimes it had just been a grim necessity of his job. It had never been something he had courted.

He would do it again to save the boys. He would do it in an instant.

He had felt fury at Walmersley. He had felt such hatred at this man who had come into their organisation and deceived everyone, then had revealed himself and threatened Illya’s own children to get what he wanted. He wanted to hold his children close every hour of the day, but he also wanted to get back into the office, to rule U.N.C.L.E. with a burning determination to get Thrush out of the world. They had become a vicious, dangerous power, and he would be happy to work until he was Waverly’s age to eradicate them like the vermin that they were.

‘We did a lot of digging back at headquarters,’ Mark was telling Napoleon. Maybe he was talking to Illya too, but he hadn’t been concentrating. ‘We found the weak point. Looks like Walmersley entered U.N.C.L.E. genuinely enough, but the psychological assessments missed that sadistic streak in him. We need to tighten that up. It made him vulnerable to Thrush. He didn’t feel that U.N.C.L.E. was tough enough to satisfy his need for power.’

‘He’s dead,’ Illya murmured. ‘He’s dead now.’

‘Er – yeah,’ Napoleon said from the front seat, as if Illya had said something embarrassing or wrong.

‘Sorry,’ Illya said, bringing himself a bit closer to alertness. He shuffled in his seat, feeling the compressing support of the back brace he was wearing. That kick had fractured two vertebrae. ‘Sorry. I just meant – He’s dead. We’ve taken him out of the pool. We can focus ourselves on weeding out any more like that. I want all the psychological profiles to be overhauled, from my own downwards. I don’t care if they’re cleaners, commissary workers, active agents, translators. Everyone who has access to headquarters is to have their psychological profiles checked, and I want the intake profiling system to be analysed, and tightened up.’

‘There’ll always be someone who’ll slip through, Illya,’ Napoleon said gently. ‘Some people are just very good at hiding these things. Other people change with time.’

‘I don’t care,’ Illya said firmly. ‘We can’t account for everyone, I know, but we can do everything humanly possible. How many of us have children? It’s a weak point for everyone who works for the organisation.’

He had known there was something wrong with Walmersley. He had felt it. He should have acted on that hunch. He could have ordered him to go through another psych assessment at any time. He should have done that.

‘Illya,’ Napoleon said. ‘These things happened when Waverly was in charge. They’ve happened to every U.N.C.L.E. outlet ever. Hell, Thrush has had people turn over to our side, too. It’s not your fault.’

‘I know,’ Illya said. He took in a sharp, deep breath. ‘I do know that. It’s all right, Napoleon. I’m all right. It’s just been a hard few days, for all of us. I’m looking forward to getting back to normal. I want to get back into the office and get these things straightened out.’

‘You’re still taking Christmas off,’ Napoleon said, then, at Illya’s silence, he said, ‘Illya. You are still taking Christmas off.’

He rubbed the bandages on one hand over the bandages on the other. The fingers on his left hand throbbed dully, because two of them were broken. The ones on his right throbbed almost as much.

‘I want to,’ he said. ‘The last thing I want is to not be with the boys for Christmas. But – ’

‘But nothing,’ Napoleon said; almost snapped. ‘There is no earthly reason why you can’t take the days you were meaning to take. Mark and April can handle it. You know they can. This is the first Christmas the boys will remember, and they _need_ you there, Illya. They need both of us. Don’t let their first Christmas memory be papa working, and not being there when they’ve been through so much. Don’t you _dare_ let that happen.’

‘We can handle it, Illya,’ Mark chimed in. ‘We’ve handled it all these last days.’

‘Yet somehow Walmersley found out where we were,’ Illya said, and he couldn’t hide the bitterness from his voice.

‘Walmersley was Enforcement and Intelligence,’ Mark reminded him. ‘And he was damn good at his job. We spent time talking on the communicators, and he managed to intercept those calls and track down your location. Not many people in the department would have been able to get through the encryptions, but like I say, he was good at his job. There will always be weak spots. It’s impossible to keep everything so tightly closed and still function as an organisation. As soon as we realised he’d gone AWOL we had teams out looking, and teams on the inside digging into his background. We were close to tracking you down when you finally called in. None of that means we can’t handle the place over Christmas, Illya. It means we were working damn hard at our jobs.’

Illya sighed. He knew he was reacting through emotion, not rationality. He knew this was a knee-jerk reaction to somehow wrest back control when he felt it had been pulled away.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, Mark. Napoleon, I’m sorry. I will be there for Christmas. I know, it’s only a few days. I know you and April can manage it, Mark, and I’m grateful that you’re giving up your own Christmas for this.’

He reached sideways and laid his hand on Kolya’s fat leg, relaxed in sleep. He was looking forward to being home with them so much that the feeling was hard to bear. He wasn’t sure that he would be able to let them sleep in their cots. He wanted them in the bed, close to him and Napoleon.

‘All right,’ Mark said. ‘Good. I want all of you to have the Christmas you deserve.’

It would be a strange Christmas. Illya was in pain, and his head was thick with painkillers. Napoleon’s arm was in a cast, and so was Pasha’s. Both boys were bruised and traumatised and just wanted to be near to their parents. Illya wanted to get everything they needed into the house and just close down to the outer world. He wanted to close down against people who would spit _faggot_ or _queer_ at them, people who would be disgusted by their lives. It was all so perfect and right, as long as they stayed behind closed doors.

‘You should come over for drinks, both of you,’ he said.

Mark and April were both fully accepting of their relationship. He felt the need to be near people who accepted them, not people who would look at them with disgust. Perhaps they could invite Nancy and Beth, who were in the same kind of relationship themselves, with two small children that they were bringing up.

‘How about Christmas Eve eve?’ Napoleon suggested. ‘I’d like Christmas Eve to be just us and the boys, but the day before would be just fine.’

‘Christmas Eve eve,’ Mark replied. ‘That sounds perfect. I know I’ll be free. I’ll check with April as soon as we get back.’

He drove for a minute in silence, then he asked, ‘Er, at the risk of being hit by Napoleon, Illya, am I driving you home or to the office? Sorry, Napoleon. You may be the boss of Illya, but he’s the boss of U.N.C.L.E..’

‘Napoleon is _not_ the boss of me,’ Illya corrected him firmly. ‘But – you’re driving us home. We need to catch some sleep. We’ll be in as soon as we can after that to do the paperwork, but I think we’ll be bringing these two with us. I’m not leaving them with anyone else for a while.’

‘Mr Teddy and Mr Duck might like to see round headquarters too,’ Napoleon added, then he said, ‘You think I’m not the boss in this relationship, Illya?’

Illya scoffed, huffing air through his nose.

‘Hey, I didn’t mean to start a domestic,’ Mark laughed. ‘I just needed to know where we’re going to.’

‘We’re going home,’ Illya said.

Just those words sounded good. If it hadn’t been for the children he would have gone straight into the office, even though he wouldn’t be able to type with his sore hands. Nancy would be able to do that for him. But he recognised how important it was to spend some time at home, just being with the boys.

 

((O))

 

It felt wonderful to be home, but strange, as well. As soon as they got in Napoleon flicked the lights on on the tree and Illya turned up the heating, then lit a fire in the fireplace in the sitting room. He went into the kitchen and found his Christmas cake still under the towel he had put over it. He would have to throw it away. He couldn’t be sure it hadn’t absorbed chemicals from that gas that had been pumped into the apartment. He didn’t think he would be able to make another with his broken fingers and the back brace on. It hurt just to stand there at the counter and heave the cake into the bin. Christmas cake would have to wait until next year. A lot of the cooking he had planned would have to wait until next year. They would just cook what was needed, and leave the rest.

‘Illya, come sit down,’ Napoleon called through to him.

He dusted down the surface with the tea towel then threw the cloth back on the surface and went back into the other room. He felt as if almost a week had been stolen from their lives. He had wanted a gentle lead-up to Christmas, spending time with the boys, wrapping presents, cooking good food. Now almost every part of his body throbbed and ached, his spine hurt badly, and his fingers throbbed every time he touched anything.

‘Give me a moment,’ he said.

He went through into the bathroom and found his spare eye. He cleaned out his socket properly, then put in the new eye. He’d have to find time to go and be fitted for another spare, but for now, at least, he had his eye in. When he went back into the room Kolya would feel like one of the terrible wrongs had been righted.

‘Okay, I’m done,’ he told Napoleon as he came back into the room. ‘Hey, Kolya, papa’s got his eye back now.’

There was clattering out in the hall, and Napoleon bellowed laughter as Pasha came up to him, saying, ‘Papa cane. Got papa cane.’

He was almost hit in the face as the toddler thrust his old cane at him. He usually used the folding one nowadays, but the old one was still there as a spare, and it must be more than twice Pasha’s height.

‘Thank you, baby,’ Illya said, taking it.

He wished he could bend down and kiss him, but the back brace wouldn’t let him. Instead, he made a show of using the cane on his path over to the sofa. He sat down awkwardly, and rested back against the cushions.

‘Come and sit down, Napoleon,’ he said. ‘Pasha, Kolenka, why don’t you go and find some of your books and come and sit with papa and daddy? I can read to you. Why don’t you bring Mr Duck and Mr Teddy, too? They must have missed you.’

Napoleon’s weight descended on the sofa cushions, and Illya leant closer against him. The coloured lights on the tree made pretty starbursts in his vision, and he listened to the boys going together out of the room. Napoleon had put a record on the record player, and carols sang softly into the air.

‘Peace,’ Illya murmured.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Napoleon asked.

‘I think it’s going to be a hard road back,’ Illya said. It was hard not to look at the immediate future with darkness. ‘There are going to be some long nights with the boys.’

‘We’ll be here with them,’ Napoleon told him. ‘Listen, Illya, I was thinking – ’

But the boys came back into the room with their books and soft toys, and Illya reached out to help them onto their laps.

‘Let me,’ Napoleon said, putting a hand on his arm. ‘You’re not supposed to be lifting, with that back.’

Illya grumbled, but he let Napoleon lift the boys up, and they snuggled comfortably onto their fathers’ laps.

‘Is that Mr Duck?’ he asked, as a toy was pushed against his face. It was wet, as if one of the boys had been sucking it. ‘Hello, Mr Duck. It’s good to see you.’

He couldn’t really define what the boys’ soft toys smelt of, but they had a distinctive smell that made him feel as if he were really home at last. That was what six months of cuddling and sucking and carrying everywhere did to a toy.

‘My Mr Duck,’ Kolya said, retracting the soft toy. ‘Papa read?’ he asked.

Illya took the book that was being pushed against his painful hands.

‘Careful of papa’s broken fingers,’ Illya reminded him.

‘Papa read?’ Pasha asked, more enquiringly than Kolya’s demand, and Illya smiled, sad but proud of his boy’s empathy. Pasha knew what a broken bone felt like.

‘Yes, Pashenka, I’ll be able to read,’ he promised, and he opened the book, brushing his unbroken fingers over the text. It was one of their favourites, and he only needed to touch the first couple of words to be sure of the page. He could recite the story from memory.

The boys sat listening, until Illya finished the book and put it aside.

‘They’re sleepy,’ Napoleon told him.

‘I know, I can feel,’ he said. They were soft and heavy on him now. He stroked his fingertips over their hair, and began to sing an old Ukrainian lullaby, low and soft.

‘You’ll put me to sleep, too,’ Napoleon said, and Illya shushed him, then carried on singing.

‘They’re off,’ Napoleon told him after only a few repetitions of the song, when the boys were slumped softly against him.

‘Good,’ Illya murmured. He was afraid sitting like this would lead to his back hurting even more than it did, but it was so good to be warm and safe, under his sleeping boys. ‘So. You were thinking?’

‘Huh?’ Napoleon asked.

‘Before they brought the book in, you said you were thinking?’ He laughed quietly. ‘You sounded as if you were about to make a great confession.’

‘Uh, yeah,’ Napoleon said slowly. He touched his hand over Illya’s, stroking his fingers lightly. He really did seem as if he were about to confess something terrible.

‘What is it, Napoleon?’ Illya asked, suddenly worried.

‘I’m going to retire,’ Napoleon said in a rush. ‘I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and this last week has just sealed it. I’ve built up a good pension and we’re not in need of the extra money. I want to be able to spend all day with the boys. I’m not expecting you to give up work. I know you couldn’t. But I don’t want them to keep being put in daycare or looked after by relatives. Antonia and mom have both said they’ll come over at the drop of a hat at the moment – I called them from the hospital. And that’s wonderful, but we can’t do that forever. One of us needs to be here for them.’

‘Okay,’ Illya said.

‘Look, I know it’s – ’ Napoleon began, as if he had been expecting a protest. Then he stopped, and repeated, ‘Okay? Illya – are you okay with this?’

Illya turned his hand over to capture Napoleon’s in his. Their arms were over their sleeping children, and he could feel the soft rise and fall of their breathing.

‘Yes, I’m okay with it,’ he promised.

It was odd to think of working for U.N.C.L.E. without Napoleon always there with him, but he would get used to it. The organisation didn’t need them both. Some of his vicious fervour to eradicate Thrush had died away now they were home. He just wanted his boys to be safe.

‘Of course I’m okay with it. I agree. I wish I could spend more time with them too. And I will. I’m not going to work into my eighties. I’m not Waverly. I will try to make my schedule more sensible and delegate more. But I’m glad you’ll be here with them permanently.’

Napoleon breathed out in relief. Illya smiled, tilting his head against Napoleon’s, watching the great blurred rosettes of the Christmas tree lights at the other side of the room. Napoleon had always taken such joy in Illya seeing the Christmas tree lights. Now he had only one eye, but he had better vision in that eye than he had when he was first blinded, and at last he could really enjoy the beauty of the lights.

‘Maybe you could take a sabbatical,’ Illya said then. ‘Just until they’re in school all day. You know, you’re valuable to U.N.C.L.E.’

Napoleon laughed softly. ‘You’re a workaholic, Illya, but that doesn’t mean I have to be too. Okay, I’ll think about retiring and I’ll think about a sabbatical, and then coming back part time. Maybe I’ll go stir crazy once the boys are in school all day. But, whatever happens, I’m going to be here with them when I can be, in a way I haven’t been until now.’

‘I’m glad,’ Illya said, tightening his arm a little over the boys.

He stroked down Pasha’s arm and felt the hard cast over his forearm. He felt that ridiculous feeling welling again, the one that had overwhelmed him in the hospital, when he had wept for what had happened.

‘I’ve had more broken bones than I can count,’ he said. ‘So why does this one broken bone feel like such a terrible thing?’

Napoleon turned his head to kiss him. ‘Because they’re our boys,’ he told Illya softly. ‘They’re our beautiful boys. We want to protect them from everything that might hurt them, and we never expected them to be exposed to the filthy side of things when they were so young.’

‘Do you think they’ll remember this, when they’re older?’ Illya asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Napoleon admitted. ‘We can hope that they won’t, but I don’t know. We just need to do everything we can in the coming days to make them feel safe, and loved.’

‘We will do everything,’ Illya said, promising himself as much as Napoleon. ‘When I have that time off we can spend every day making them happy.’

He touched his hand to Napoleon’s face, stroking his cheek gently. His fingers touched something hard and spidering on his skin. Stitches. His partner flinched away from the touch.

‘Napoleon,’ he said darkly. He hadn’t touched Napoleon’s face since they got into the hospital. ‘Stitches? And I can feel how swollen that cheek is.’

Napoleon sighed. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Fractured cheekbone, and a good split in the skin. They punched me pretty hard when they were trying to persuade you to talk. I guess they wanted my cries to sound good.’

‘What else?’ Illya asked in a hard voice. ‘Napoleon. What else? It’s not fair of you to try to hide things from me. You know that.’

‘Full disclosure?’ Napoleon asked. ‘A couple of broken ribs, just like you. The arm, you know about. The fractured cheek. They were monitoring me for concussion.’

Illya hissed out breath. ‘And you weren’t going to tell me they were monitoring you for concussion? You were going to wait until you started showing signs that you know I can’t see? Should you even have been discharged? Napoleon...’

‘I know,’ Napoleon said, putting a hand over his. ‘I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been worried enough about you and the boys together. I didn’t want you to worry about me too. But they were fine about discharging me as long as there was someone here.’

‘Napoleon, I don’t need to remind you any more that I’m blind, do I?’ Illya asked impatiently. ‘You have noticed that little fact, after ten years?’

‘Yes, and you know that the signs of concussion don’t rely on you being able to see. Slurring, confusion, nausea. You don’t need to see me for that.’

‘No,’ Illya said. ‘Okay. No. I’m sorry.’ He breathed deeply. He hated feeling out of control, and it was making him irritable. ‘But – Napoleon – why don’t we ask Antonia if she’ll come and stay for a few days? We’ve both got broken ribs. We’re both in a lot of pain. We’d be fine if it were just us, but I think we need to face the fact that we’ll need some help.’

Napoleon touched a hand to Illya’s cheek, turning his head, then leant in to kiss him softly.

‘I’ll ask Antonia,’ he promised. ‘She was talking about being lonely when I called her last. She might like to spend a while with us and the boys.’

‘Good,’ Illya said, resting his head gently against Napoleon’s, feeling the softness of Napoleon’s hair against his own. He craved being alone with Napoleon and the boys, but he liked Antonia, and she was easy to spend time with. ‘Good. You call her when these two wake up.’

He shifted carefully so that he was pressed right against Napoleon’s side, feeling him all along the side of his body. His ribs and back spiked pain, and one of the boys moaned a little in sleep, but it was worth it to be able to rest himself against his partner. The room was so warm and the voices on the record were gently filling the air, and the fire crackled softly from the other side of the room. His body ached, but he would happily take that. They were safe, with an U.N.C.L.E. guard outside the door, the boys sleeping on their laps, and Napoleon so close to him that he could feel his heartbeat. He never wanted to stop feeling that heartbeat.

‘We’ll find a way to make it all work,’ he said. ‘We’ll find a way to balance U.N.C.L.E. and these two. Whatever it takes, we will find a way.’

‘Of course we will, my sweet,’ Napoleon promised. ‘All of it. Us, too. Maybe one day we won’t have to hide any of this. Things are changing all the time. It’s getting easier to be open, slowly.’

‘Maybe,’ Illya murmured.

He could foresee Thrush falling and U.N.C.L.E. winding down before he could foresee the world happy to accept two men loving each other and raising children together. It was a sad darkness that stuck in his throat, impossible to shake away. But as long as they were together within their own walls, they could be happy.

‘Black little Russian,’ Napoleon said affectionately. ‘We can hope. One day I’ll marry you. I promise you that.’

Illya smiled. ‘One day I’ll marry you,’ he echoed. ‘We’re already married. We don’t need a piece of paper to tell us that.’

‘Regardless,’ Napoleon replied. ‘One day I’ll marry you. We’ll stand in front of people and let them know that we love each other, and not be ashamed. Not be told to feel shame.’ He was silent for a moment, musing, then he said, ‘Illya Solo. That sounds good.’

Illya snorted, then put a hand softly on one of the boys as he stirred, gently reassuring him back into sleep.

‘Napoleon Kuryakin,’ he countered. ‘How about that? I like my surname. I don’t see why either of us should give up our names. We’re men, after all.’

‘You know when Antonia calls you a misogynistic bastard?’ Napoleon asked. ‘Sometimes I think she’s right.’

‘So says the great lover and leaver of women,’ Illya returned, laughing. ‘All right. I’m a misogynistic bastard. I’m still keeping my name, and you’re keeping yours.’

‘Then you’re marrying me?’ Napoleon asked, his voice stripped of humour now. He sounded uncertain, like a man on his knees, making a proposal.

‘One day, I’ll marry you,’ Illya told him, taking his hand. He stroked his finger over Napoleon’s, where a ring would be. It would be good to feel a ring there, and know he had put it there. ‘All right, Napoleon. That’s a promise. If it ever becomes something we can do, I will marry you. We will have flowers and beautiful suits and all our friends there. We’ll have a wedding breakfast, and a honeymoon in Rome. Maybe our grandchildren will be at the ceremony. We’ll let all New York know that we’re not ashamed.’


End file.
